THE  JAPANESE  CRISIS 


THE 

JAPANESE  CRISIS 

BY 

JAMES  A.  B.  SCHERER,  PH.D.,  LL.D. 

PRESIDENT   OF   THROOP   COLLEGE    OF    TECHNOLOGY 

Author  of  "Japan  To-day"  and  "Young  Japan" 


NEW  YORK 

FREDERICK  A.  STOKES  COMPANY 
PUBLISHERS 


Copyright,  1916,  by 
FREDERICK  A.  STOKES  COMPANY 


All  rights  reserved,  including  that  of  translation  into 
foreign  languages. 


TO 
A.  H.  F. 


337736 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

INTRODUCTION 3 

CALIFORNIA  AND  THE  OPENING  OF  JAPAN   .      .  9 

THE  COMING  OF  THE  JAPANESE  TO  CALIFORNIA  21     r>  «^« 

Is  JAPAN  MILITANT? 41 

ARE    THE    JAPANESE    ASSIMILABLE?    ....  67 

Is  AGRICULTURAL  COMPETITION  SAFE?    ...  89 

THE  ALIEN  LAND  LAW;  CONCLUSION  ....  97 

APPENDICES 

TRANSLATION  OF  THE  JAPANESE  LAND  LAW  .  .119 

TEXT  OF  THE  CALIFORNIA  LAND  LAW  .      .      .  .125 

THE  AMERICAN- JAPANESE  TREATY  OF  1911   .  .    131 

AN  ARGUMENT  FOR  NON-DISCRIMINATION      .  .139 

INDEX  ..  14S 


THE  JAPANESE  CRISIS 


THE  JAPANESE  CRISIS 

INFLUENTIAL  California  citizens  have 
urged  me  to  prepare  these  pages,  on  the 
ground  that  opportunities  imply  an  obliga 
tion. 

The  personal  experience  to  which  they  al 
lude  includes  a  residence  of  five  years  among 
the  Japanese  (1892-1897),  in  the  educa 
tional  service  of  the  Imperial  government, 
studying  the  language  and  learning  some 
thing  of  oriental  history  and  outlook;  a  citi 
zenship  of  seven  years  in  California  (1908  to 
the  present),  with  attendance — as  a  visitor 
— on  two  sessions  of  the  legislature,  includ 
ing  that  which  passed  the  Alien  Land  Law; 
and  a  prolonged  familiarity  with  race  prob 
lems  as  they  exist  in  the  South,  resulting  in 
an  appreciation  of  their  difficulty  and  a  sus 
picion  of  offhand  solutions. 

The  obligation,  once  pointed  out,  seems 


JAPANESE  CRISIS 

plain.  That  there  is  a  Japanese- American 
problem  is  indicated  not  only  by  the  inter 
mittent  eruptions  of  the  "yellow  press"  in 
both  countries, — none  the  less  mischievous 
because  irresponsible  and  frequently  menda 
cious, — but  by  the  publication  of  serious  and 
thoughtful  volumes  of  well  tempered  discus 
sion,  by  the  organization  of  such  mutual  ben 
efit  associations  as  the  Japan  Society  and  the 
Asiatic  Institute  in  New  York  and  the  Nichi 
Bei  Doshi  Kwai  ("Japan- America  One  Aim 
Society")  in  Tokyo,  and  by  the  concern 
which  the  two  governments  manifest  when 
periods  of  agitation  recur.  In  view  of  the 
immense  mass  of  grotesque  misrepresenta 
tion  with  which  the  public  is  intermittently 
deluged,  it  becomes  the  duty  of  all  those  who 
have  had  experience  with  both  sides  of  the 
problem  to  contribute  toward  a  just  balance 
of  view.  Few  things  could  please  the  pres 
ent  writer  more  than  the  ability  to  assist, 
even  in  the  remotest  degree,  in  bringing 
about  a  better  understanding  between  sin 
cere  and  earnest  groups  of  friends  on  both 


INTRODUCTION  5 

sides  of  the  Pacific,  whose  chief  need  is  pre 
cisely  this  of  mutual  comprehension. 

My  pupils  in  the  old  feudal  city  of  Saga 
used  to  be  fond  of  recounting  the  quaint  fa 
ble  of  The  Two  Frogs — one  living  in  Kyoto, 
the  other  in  Osaka — who  set  out  each  to  see 
the  other's  city.  When  they  met  on  the  top 
of  the  hill  between  the  two  towns  they  sa 
luted,  and  then  stood  up  and  took  a  look, 
whereupon  each  frogship  remarked: 

"Huh!  1  have  seen  nothing  new  nor  in 
teresting  nor  different!  Your  city  is  ex 
actly  like  my  own" — and  hopped  back  to  his 
former  habitudes  of  thought  and  action,  not 
a  bit  the  wiser. 

Unfortunately  for  their  better  under 
standing,  frogs'  eyes  are  so  placed  that  these 
two  upstanding  travelers,  thinking  to  look 
forward,  really  looked  backwards ;  the  Osaka 
frog  saw  Osaka,  but  thought  he  had  seen 
Kyoto,  while  the  Kyoto  frog  hopped  com 
placently  homeward  and  became  an  author 
ity,  ever  afterwards,  on  the  thesis  that  there 
was  no  need  in  trying  to  get  the  view-point 


6  THE  JAPANESE  CRISIS 

of  Osaka,  seeing  it  was  just  exactly  like 
home. 

The  point  of  this  fable,  of  course,  is  in 
its  application.  Japan  and  America  are  in 
finitely  more  different  than  these  two 
Japanese  cities.  Shall  we  who  look  across 
the  Pacific  see  with  understanding,  eye  to 
eye,  or  envisage  each  the  problem  of  the 
other  in  terms  of  backward-looking  provin 
cialism? 


CALIFORNIA  AND  THE  OPENING  OF 
JAPAN 


CALIFORNIA  AND  THE  OPENING  OF 
JAPAN 

A  WRONG  impression  is  conveyed  by  the 
usual  account  of  Commodore  Perry's  famous 
entry  into  the  Bay  of  Yedo.  Missionary 
books  and  addresses  frequently  emphasize 
the  story  of  a  Sunday  morning  with  the 
capstan  draped  in  an  American  flag  and  the 
ship's  company  singing  Old  Hundred,  as  if 
this  were  the  chief  device  adopted  for  open 
ing  the  gates  that  had  been  shut  for  two 
hundred  and  sixty-eight  years.  But  in 
Hawks's  vivacious  '  'Narrative"  it  is  another 
story. 

"The  next  day  was  Sunday  (July  10th), 
and,  as  usual,  divine  service  was  held  on 
board  the  ships" — that  is  the  only  reference 
to  the  first  Sunday  service.1 

i  Hawks,  F.  L.,  "Narrative  of  the  Expedition  of  an 
American  Squadron  to  the  China  Seas  and  Japan,  per 
formed  in  the  years  1852,  1853,  and  1854,  under  the  Com 
mand  of  Commodore  M.  C.  Perry,  United  States  Navy; 
by  Order  of  the  Government  of  the  United  States,  com 
piled  from  the  Original  Notes  and  Journals  of  Commodore 

9 


10  THE  JAPANESE  CRISIS 

On  the  other  hand,  we  get  vivid  items  like 
these : 

"As  the  ships  neared  the  bay,  signals  were 
made  from  the  Commodore,  and  instantly 
the  decks  were  cleared  for  action,  the  guns 
being  placed  in  position  and  shotted,  the 
ammunition  arranged,  the  small  arms  made 
ready,  sentinels  and  men  at  their  posts,  and, 
in  short,  all  the  preparations  made,  usual  be 
fore  meeting  an  enemy.2  .  .  .  The  question 
of  landing  by  force  was  left  to  be  decided  by 
the  development  of  succeeding  events ;  it  was, 
of  course,  the  very  last  measure  to  be  re 
sorted  to,  and  the  last  that  was  desired;  but 
in  order  to  be  prepared  for  the  worst,  the 
Commodore  caused  the  ships  constantly  to 
be  kept  in  perfect  readiness,  and  the  crews 
to  be  drilled  as  thoroughly  as  they  are  in  time 
of  active  war."  3 

A  contemporary  native  writer  declared 
that  "the  popular  commotion  in  Yedo  at  the 

Perry  and  His  Officers,  at  his  request,  and  under  his  super 
vision":  New  York  and  London,  1857;  p.  240. 

2  Hawks,  F.  L.,  as  cited,  p.  231. 

3  Hawks,  F.  L.,  as  cited,  p.  235. 


THE  OPENING  OF  JAPAN  11 

news  of  'a  foreign  invasion'  was  beyond  de 
scription.  The  whole  city  was  in  an  uproar. 
In  all  directions  were  seen  mothers  flying 
with  children  in  their  arms,  and  men  with 
mothers  on  their  backs.  Rumors  of  an  im 
mediate  action,  exaggerated  each  time  they 
were  communicated  from  mouth  to  mouth, 
added  horror  to  the  horror-stricken."  4 

The  Japanese  made  a  virtue  of  necessity, 
and  friendly  relations  were  established  with 
out  bloodshed.  The  Perry  Narrative  goes 
on  to  show  that  when  reluctant  native  offi 
cials  at  length  visited  the  ships,  the  consola 
tions  extended  to  them  were  of  a  spirituous 
rather  than  spiritual  character,  as  the  fol 
lowing  comment  indicates : 

"In  receiving  the  hospitalities  of  their 
hosts,  it  may  be  remarked  that  they  partook 
freely,  and  seemed  to  relish  particularly  the 
whisky  and  brandy  which  formed  part  of 
the  entertainment.  The  governor  especially 

4  Nitobe,  I.,  "The  Intercourse  between  the  United  States 
and  Japan,"  cited  in  Larned's  History  for  Ready  Refer 
ence,  under  Japan,  1852-1888:  Springfield,  1895,  vol.  iii,  p. 
1877. 


la  THE  JAPANESE  CRISIS 

appeared  to  appreciate  the  foreign  liquors, 
particularly  when  mixed  with  sugar,  and 
smacked  his  lips  with  great  gusto,  as  he 
drained  his  glass  to  its  last  sweetened  dregs. 
His  interpreters,  in  the  growing  freedom  of 
convivial  enjoyment,  made  merry  over  his 
highness'  bacchanalian  proclivity."  5 

The  combination  of  fire  arms  and  fire  wa 
ter  looms  very  large  in  the  list  of  official  gifts 
afterwards  presented  by  the  Americans  to 
the  Japanese.  Following  are  the  first  items 
mentioned : 

1  box  of  arms,  containing — 

5  Hall's  rifles, 

3  Maynard's  muskets, 
12  cavalry  swords, 

6  artillery  swords, 

1  carbine, 

20  army  pistols, 

2  carbines,  cartridge  boxes,  and  belts, 

containing  120  cartridges. 

10  HaU's  rifles. 

11  cavalry  swords. 

B  Hawks,  F.  L.,  as  cited,  p.  248. 


THE  OPENING  OF  JAPAN  13 

1  carbine,  cartridge  box  and  belts, 
and  60  cartridges. 

1  box  books,  Emperor. 

1  box  dressing-cases,  Emperor. 

1  box  perfumery,  2  packages,  Emperor. 

1  barrel  whisky,  Emperor. 

1  cask  wine,  Emperor. 

1  box  for  distribution. 

1  box  containing  11  pistols,  for  distribu 
tion. 

A  quantity  of  cherry  cordials,  distribution. 

A  quantity  of  cherry  cordials,  Emperor. 

A  number  of  baskets  champaigne,  Em 
peror. 

A  number  of  baskets  champaigne,  com 
missioners,  etc.,  etc.6 

Perry's  primary  object,  on  the  occasion  of 
his  first  visit,  was  to  secure  respectful  con 
sideration  for  a  letter  directed  to  the  Em 
peror  by  President  Fillmore.  When  the 
Japanese  governor  first  came  on  board  the 
flag  ship,  "the  original  letter  of  the  Presi 
dent,  together  with  the  Commodore's  letter 

e  Hawks,  F.  L.,  as  cited,  p.  356,  note. 


14  THE  JAPANESE  CRISIS 

of  credence,  incased  in  the  magnificent  boxes 
which  had  been  prepared  in  Washington, 
were  shown  to  his  excellency,  who  was  evi 
dently  greatly  impressed  with  their  exquisite 
workmanship  and  costliness." 

The  Commodore  quite  properly  refused  to 
deliver  this  letter  until  assured  that  it  would 
be  presented  to  the  Shogun  himself — whom 
he  always  mistook  for  the  Emperor.  The 
Narrative's  description  of  the  final  proces 
sion  of  presentation  is  a  delicious  bit  of  writ 
ing: 

"The  marines  led  the  way,  and  the  sailors 
following,  the  Commodore  was  duly  escorted 
up  the  beach.  The  United  States  flag  and 
the  broad  pennant  were  borne  by  two  ath 
letic  seamen,  who  had  been  selected  from  the 
crews  of  the  squadron  on  account  of  their 
stalwart  proportions.  Two  boys,  dressed 
for  the  ceremony,  preceded  the  Commodore, 
bearing  in  an  envelope  of  scarlet  cloth  the 
boxes  which  contained  his  credentials  and 
the  President's  letter.  These  documents,  of 
folio  size,  were  beautifully  written  on  vellum, 


THE  OPENING  OF  JAPAN  15 

and  not  folded,  but  bound  in  blue  silk  velvet. 
Each  seal,  attached  by  cords  of  interwoven 
gold  and  silk  with  pendant  gold  tassels,  was 
incased  in  a  circular  box  six  inches  in  di 
ameter  and  three  in  depth,  wrought  of  pure 
gold.  Each  of  the  documents  together  with 
its  seal,  was  placed  in  a  box  of  rosewood 
about  a  foot  long,  with  lock,  hinges,  and 
mountings,  all  of  gold.  On  either  side  of 
the  Commodore  marched  a  tall,  well- formed 
negro,  who,  armed  to  the  teeth,  acted  as  his 
personal  guard.  These  blacks,  selected  for 
the  occasion,  were  two  of  the  best  looking 
fellows  of  their  color  that  the  squadron  could 
furnish.  All  this,  of  course,  was  but  for 
effect."  7 

It  is  important  for  all  Americans,  but  es 
pecially  for  Californians,  to  recall  and  con 
stantly  to  bear  in  mind  the  principal  con 
tents  of  this  Presidential  letter,  presented  at 
the  barred  gates  of  Japan  with  a  fleet  to  en 
force  its  acceptance  if  pomp  and  mellow  con 
viviality  should  fail. 

7  Hawks,  F.  L.,  as  cited,  pp.  254-255. 


16  THE  JAPANESE  CRISIS 

"Our  great  State  of  California,"  wrote 
President  Fillmore,  "produces  about  sixty 
millions  of  dollars  in  gold  every  year,  besides 
silver,  quicksilver,  precious  stones,  and  many 
other  valuable  articles.  ...  I  am  desirous 
that  our  two  countries  should  trade  with  each 
other."  8 

Again : 

"I  have  directed  Commodore  Perry  to 
mention  another  thing  to  your  imperial  maj 
esty.  Many  of  our  ships  pass  every  year 
from  California  to  China;  and  great  num 
bers  of  our  people  pursue  the  whale  fishery 
near  the  shores  of  Japan.  It  sometimes  hap 
pens,  in  stormy  weather,  that  one  of  our 
ships  is  wrecked  on  your  imperial  majesty's 
shores.  In  all  such  cases  we  ask,  and  ex 
pect,  that  our  unfortunate  people  should  be 
treated  with  kindness,  and  that  their  prop 
erty  should  be  protected,  till  we  can  send  a 
vessel  and  bring  them  away.  We  are  very 
much  in  earnest  in  this. 

"Commodore  Perry  is  also  directed  by  me 

a  Hawks,  F.  L.,  as  cited,  p.  256. 


THE  OPENING  OF  JAPAN  17 

to  represent  to  your  imperial  majesty  that 
we  understand  there  is  a  great  abundance 
of  coal  and  provisions  in  the  Empire  of 
Japan.  Our  steamships,  in  crossing  the 
great  ocean,  burn  a  great  deal  of  coal,  and  it 
is  not  convenient  to  bring  it  all  the  way  from 
America.  We  wish  that  our  steamships  and 
other  vessels  should  be  allowed  to  stop  in 
Japan  and  supply  themselves  with  coal,  pro 
visions,  and  water.  .  .  .  We  are  very  de 
sirous  of  this."  9 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  extension 
of  California  commerce,  made  suddenly  im 
portant  in  consequence  of  the  recent  discov 
ery  of  gold,  was  the  chief  argument  used 
with  Japan  in  our  successful  effort  to  open 
the  gates  that  lyeyasu  had  barred. 

It  was  California  commerce  that  opened 
Japan's  gates  to  the  world,  and  fair  play,  as 
well  as  self  interest,  forbids  that  any  ill- 
considered  act  of  ours  should  write  the  name 
of  Janus  across  them.  Seward  once  elo 
quently  declared  that  "the  Pacific  Ocean,  its 

»  Hawks,  F.  L.,  as  cited,  p.  257. 


18  THE  JAPANESE  CRISIS 

shores,  its  islands,  and  its  adjacent  territories 
will  become  the  chief  theater  of  human  events 
and  activities  in  the  world's  great  hereafter." 
With  such  a  vision  in  their  eyes,  Japan  and 
America  should  be  sagacious  enough  to  per 
ceive  that  the  Pacific  must  ever  be  kept  true 
to  its  name  if  their  argosies  are  to  weave  back 
and  forth  across  its  breast  a  cloth  of  gold. 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  JAPANESE 
TO  CALIFORNIA 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  JAPANESE 
TO  CALIFORNIA 

COMMODORE  PERRY,  acting  for  the  United 
States,  signed  (in  1854),  conjointly  with  the 
representatives  of  the  Japanese  government, 
the  first  treaty  Japan  had  ever  made  with 
any  western  power.  The  first  article  in  that 
treaty  read  as  follows : 

"There  shall  be  a  perfect,  permanent,  and 
universal  peace  and  a  sincere  and  cordial 
amity,  between  the  United  States  of  Amer 
ica,  on  the  one  part,  and  the  Empire  of 
Japan  on  the  other,  and  between  their 
people,  respectively,  without  exception  of 
persons  or  places." 

Friendship  between  the  two  nations  and 
peoples  was  steadily  fostered  from  this  time 
forward.  The  excellent  influence  of  early 
American  teachers  resident  in  Japan  can 
hardly  be  overestimated.  Through  one  of 
these  the  Great  Embassy  of  1871  was  in- 

i  Hawks,  F.  L.,  as  cited,  p.  378. 
21 


22  THE  JAPANESE  CRISIS 

spired,  following  the  route  he  outlined,  sub 
mitting  to  his  judgment  in  the  matter  of  ap 
pointments,  and,  by  acquainting  Japan  at 
first  hand  with  the  nations  of  the  outside 
world,  bringing  an  appreciation  of  America 
that  led  to  its  characterization,  in  the  com 
mon  parlance  of  the  populace,  as  the  Dai  On 
Jin,  or  Great  Friendly  People.  And  the 
Americans,  by  their  warm  and  generous 
sympathy,  fairly  earned  the  title.  From  the 
days  of  Townsend  Harris  to  the  period  of 
the  Russian  War,  America  almost  uniformly 
took  the  part  of  Japan  as  against  European 
aggressiveness,  admiring  the  independence 
and  ability  of  this  plucky  and  open-minded 
little  nation,  which  we  marveled  to  see  ad 
vancing,  within  a  short  half -century,  from 
the  snug  seclusion  of  a  fascinating  but  im 
practicable  curio-box  to  a  position  of  modern 
world-  leadership . 

California  joined  in  this  admiration  no 
whit  less  heartily  than  the  other  states  of 
the  Union  so  long  as,  like  them,  she  could 


JAPANESE  IN  CALIFORNIA  23 

view  Japan  from  afar.  It  ought  to  be  un 
derstood  at  the  outset  that  the  jar  of  physical 
contact  alone,  due  to  Japanese  immigration, 
beginning  in  1885,  reaching  a  climax  in 
1900,  and  steadily  localizing  in  California, 
so  that  three-fifths  of  all  the  Japanese  in 
this  country  are  now  living  within  the  bor 
ders  of  this  single  state — that  is  the  sole  ex 
planation  of  the  diminution,  as  respects 
California,  of  mutual  friendly  regard. 

In  the  first  stages  of  such  physical  con 
tact,  racial  antipathy  is  inevitable;  being 
cleverly  hit  off  by  the  overheard  conversa 
tion  of  two  British  hod-carriers  reported  by 
Punch,  as  follows: 

"Bill,  there  goes  a  furriner!" 

"  'Eave  'arf  a  brick  at  'im!" 

As  Baron  Kaneko  learnedly  remarks, 
"racial  antipathy  is  only  a  spontaneous  phe 
nomenon  of  human  psychology.  But,  nev 
ertheless,  the  progress  of  man,  of  civiliza 
tion,  is,  in  a  sense,  a  systematic  restraint  of 
his  innate  propensities,  and  if  so,  the  racial 


24  THE  JAPANESE  CRISIS 

feeling,  among  others,  must  be  controlled 
and  suppressed  by  all  means."  2 

In  California  the  Japanese,  notwithstand 
ing  exceptional  qualities  and  genuine  like- 
ableness,  encountered  accidental  misfortune : 
they  inherited  the  deeply  seated  California 
prejudice  against  the  Chinese. 

Now,  few  contrasts  are  more  striking  than 
that  between  Japanese  quarters  and  the 
"Chinatowns"  of  Pacific  coast  cities.  Mr. 
Chester  Rowell  has  drawn  this  comparison 
effectively.  "There  is  no  law  in  Chinatown. 
The  slave  traffic  is  open  and  notorious,  and 
slave  pens,  with  bought  slave  girls  peering 
through  the  barred  windows,  are  a  familiar 
sight.  The  most  respected  occupations  of 
the  leading  Chinese  citizens  are  gambling 
and  lottery.  .  .  .  The  governing  bodies  of 
Chinatown  are  the  rival  companies  or  'tongs,' 
which  enforce  their  decrees  and  settle  their 
feuds  by  murder.  .  .  .  Chinese  gambling 
joints  are  actual  fortresses,  with  steel  doors, 

2  Kaneko,  K.,  in  "Japan's  Message  to  America":  Tokyo, 
1914;  p.  9. 


JAPANESE  IN  CALIFORNIA  25 

sentries,  and  a  labyrinth  of  secret  exits. 
They  are  an  open,  fortified  defiance  of  law, 
and  are  a  source  of  almost  universal  police 
graft.  .  .  .  Sanitary  conditions  are  unspeak 
able  and  sanitary  regulations  are  unenforce 
able.  .  .  .  The  Japanese  in  the  beginning 
congregate  on  the  borders  of  Chinatown,  but 
they  build  better  and  cleaner  houses  and  ad 
mit  some  air  to  them.  They  adopt  Ameri 
can  clothing  at  once,  and  American  customs 
very  rapidly.  .  .  .  The  general  aspect  of  life 
is  cheerful  and  attractive,  and  the  Japanese 
themselves,  from  the  highest  to  the  lowest, 
are  a  delightfully  polite  and  genial  people. 
.  .  .  They  develop  a  civic  sense,  public  spirit, 
and  moral  leadership."  3 

At  the  time  when  the  Japanese  began  to 
enter  California  in  noticeable  numbers  this 
marked  distinction,  however,  could  naturally 
not  be  appreciated.  Coming  from  the  same 
quarter  of  the  globe  as  the  Chinese,  whom 
they  superficially  resemble,  and  coming,  too, 

3  "Annals  of  the  American  Academy  of  Political  and  So 
cial  Science,"  vol.  xxxiv,  no.  2:  Philadelphia,  1909;  pp. 
226-227. 


26  THE  JAPANESE  CRISIS 

precisely  at  the  time  when  San  Francisco 
was  demanding  a  re-enactment  of  the  Chi 
nese  exclusion  law,  the  Japanese  naturally 
fell  heir  to  the  anti-Chinese  prejudice.  At 
the  mass  meeting  of  May  7,  1900,  San  Fran 
cisco  citizens  passed  a  resolution  urging 
Congress  not  only  to  re-enact  the  Chinese  ex 
clusion  law,  but  also  to  adopt  such  measures 
as  might  be  necessary  for  the  total  exclusion 
of  all  classes  of  Japanese  other  than  mem 
bers  of  the  diplomatic  staff.4 

Professor  Millis,  whose  study  of  the  ques 
tion  has  covered  about  a  dozen  years,  believes 
that  this  unlucky  inheritance  of  anti- Chinese 
prejudice,  due  to  coincidence  in  time  and 
to  superficial  racial  resemblance,  has  colored 
the  whole  history  of  the  Japanese  in  this 
country^  especially  in  California.5 

In  spite  of  the  San  Francisco  mass  meet 
ing,  scant  popular  interest  was  felt  through 
out  the  state  in  the  exclusion  or  restriction 

4  Millis,  H.  A.,  "The  Japanese  Problem  in  the  United 
States:"  New  York,  1915;  p.  12.  Derived  from  "Reports  of 
Immigration  Commission,"  vol.  23,  p.  167. 

s  Millis,  as  cited,  pp.  240-241. 


JAPANESE  IN  CALIFORNIA  27 

of  Japanese  immigration  until  the  San 
Francisco  Chronicle  opened,  in  1905,  a  cam 
paign  which  proved  highly  successful.  At 
that  time  an  enlarged  stream  by  way  of 
Honolulu  was  emptying  itself  into  the  bay 
of  San  Francisco,  "where  it  was  made  con 
spicuously  evident  by  all  the  circumstances 
connected  with  disembarkation,  boarding 
and  lodging,  and  subsequent  employment."  6 
No  less  than  thirty-six  "emigration  com 
panies"  were  engaged  at  this  time  in  export 
ing  Japanese  laborers,  with  capital  assets 
ranging  all  the  way  from  %fcQpO  to  1,000,- 
000  yen.7  In  opening  itsr«l  BL  the  Chron 
icle  pointed  out  that  the  Jaj^|Be  population 
of  California  had  grown  from  eighty-six  in 
1880  to  35,000  in  1905,  with  immigration 
rapidly  increasing.  It  claims  to  have  based 
its  opposition  not  on  race  prejudice,  but  on 
the  economic  doctrine  of  the  danger  of  com 
petition  between  American  labor  and  that  of 
a  race  "fully  as  capable  as  our  own  and  hav- 

6  Millis,  as  cited,  p.  13. 

7  Yoshida,  Y.,  "Sources  and  Causes  of  Japanese  Emigra 
tion,"  in  "Annals,"  as  cited,  p.  165,  note. 


28  THE  JAPANESE  CRISIS 

ing  the  added  advantage  of  being  inured  by 
centuries  of  self-denial  to  a  mode  of  life  to 
which  we  do  not  wish  to  conform,  even  if  we 
had  the  ability  to  do  so."  8 

The  Chronicle  opened  its  campaign  in 
February,  1905.  On  March  1  the  legisla 
ture  unanimously  requested  Congress  to  re 
strict  the  further  immigration  of  Japanese 
laborers,  and  in  May  the  Asiatic  Exclusion 
League  was  organized  in  San  Francisco. 
The  constituency  of  this  League  was  at  that 
time  influential  in  control  of  the  municipal 
government,  with  the  result  that  on  May  6 
the^Board  of  Education  declared  its  deter 
mination  to  establish  separate  schools  tor 
oriental  pupils.  After  the  great  fire  of  1906 
this  "separate  school  order"  was  passed,  and 
the  Japanese-California  problem  became  an 
international  issue.  This  whole  agitation 
led  ultimately  (in  1907)  to  the  "Gentlemen's 
Agreement"  brought  about  by  President 
Roosevelt  with  the  Japanese  government, 

s  Young,  J.JP.JL  an  editor  of  the  Chronicle,  in  "Annals," 
as  cited,  pp.  233-234. 


JAPANESE  IN  CALIFORNIA  29 

which  undertook  to  prevent  a  further  emi 
gration  of  laborers,  or,  rather,  to  limit  the  is 
suance  of  passports  to  non-laborers,  and  to 
those  laborers  "who,  in  coming  to  the  conti 
nent,  seek  to  resume  a  formerly  acquired 
domicile,  to  join  a  parent,  wife,  or  children 
residing  here,  or  to  assume  active  control  of 
an  already  possessed  interest  in  a  farming 
enterprise." 

In  the  same  year  the  President  issued  an 
order  directed  against  a  large  immigration  of 
Japanese  by  way  of  Mexico,  Canada,  and 
Hawaii;  passports  having  been  obtained  for 
entrance  to  these  countries,  in  order  to  effect 
ultimate  entrance  to  the  continental  United 
States — "lawfully  previous  to  the  issue  of 
the  President's  order  of  March  14, 1907,  sur 
reptitiously  ever  since." 

Opponents  of  Japanese  immigration  find 
a  vulnerable  point  in  the  "Gentlemen's 
Agreement"  in  the  understanding  which  al 
lows  "non-laborers,"  that  is  to  say,  women, 

9  "Reports   of  the   Immigration  Commission,"  vol.  23,  p. 
15,  quoted  by  Millis,  as  cited,  p.  11. 


30  THE  JAPANESE  CRISIS 

to  come  in  unhindered  as  "Picture  Brides." 
"If  there  are  55,000  Japanese  men  in  the 
state  (or  100,000,  as  the  Exclusion  League 
guesses)  the  privilege  of  each  to  send  his 
photograph  to  Japan  and  marry  it  to  a  wife 
means  a  possible  immediate  increase  of  the 
population  to  110,000  (or  200,000)  with  the 
potential  permanent  increase  of  the  progeny 
of  these  marriages.  These  wives,  of  course, 
also  increase  the  tendency  of  the  Japanese  to 
seek  more  fixed  occupations.  The  picture 
bride  is  not  permitted  to  leave  Japan  until 
her  photograph  husband  has  provided  a  place 
for  her.  'Catch  'em  wife'  is  one  of  the  mo 
tives  commonly  assigned  by  Japanese  for 
taking  up  land  leases.  To  these  must  be 
added  whatever  Japanese  slip  in  from  Mex 
ico.  The  Exclusion  League  insists  that 
there  is  a  constant  stream  of  Japanese  im 
migration  to  insignificant  Mexican  ports 
near  the  border,  with  no  increase  in  the  Japa 
nese  population  of  those  ports  and  no  sign 
of  its  absorption  elsewhere  in  Mexico."  10 

loRowell,  C.  H.,  "The  Japanese  in  California,"  in  The 
World's  Work:  New  York,  June,  1913. 


JAPANESE  IN  CALIFORNIA  31 

Americans  unacquainted  with  Japanese 
customs  have  branded  these  quaint  transac 
tions  in  "Picture  Brides"  as  being  merely  a 
cunning  device  for  evading  the  spirit  of  the 
''Gentlemen's  Agreement."  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  however,  marriages  are  often  arranged 
by  this  means  in  Japan,  and  sometimes  with 
out  even  a  photograph  acquaintance.  The 
present  writer  knew  a  young  Japanese  who, 
according  to  the  well-known  naka-dachi 
or  "go-between"  system,  asked  an  elderly 
friend  to  go  up  the  river  and  find  a  wife  for 
him.  On  returning,  the  "go-between"  re 
ported  to  the  groom-elect  that  he  had  found 
two  suitable  sisters,  and  asked  which  one 
was  preferred.  The  young  man  expressed 
a  preference  for  the  younger.  But  the  older 
man,  on  further  consideration,  decided  that 
the  elder  girl  would  suit  better. 

"Oh,  all  right,"  replied  the  groom;  "it's  a 
matter  of  no  consequence  to  me." 

To  us  such  methods  of  matrimony  may 
seem  amusing,  but  many  of  our  own  customs 
are  equally  amusing  to  the  Japanese.  The 


32  THE  JAPANESE  CRISIS 

point  is,  that  the  "Picture  Brides"  system  is 
merely  an  adaptation  of  Japanese  marriage 
customs  to  new  and  strange  conditions,  and 
it  is  difficult  to  see  how  those  critics  who  so 
strongly  oppose  racial  intermarriage  can 
consistently  object  to  an  arrangement  with 
the  opposite  tendency.  Dr.  Gulick  not  only 
sees  nothing  to  criticize  in  this  procedure, 
but,  on  the  contrary,  regards  it  as  exceed 
ingly  wise,  and  well  calculated,  in  the  cir 
cumstances,  to  secure  the  best  possible  re 
sults.  The  marriages,  as  a  rule,  are  success 
ful,  only  about  one  per  cent  having  thus  far 
ended  in  divorce.11 

The  "Gentlemen's  Agreement,"  which  is 
still  in  force,  seemed  to  the  majority  of  Cali 
fornia  citizens  entirely  satisfactory  in  its 
operation  until,  in  1913,  by  a  complication 
of  extraordinary  circumstances,  the  legisla 
ture  passed  the  Alien  Land  Law,  which  will 
be  considered  in  its  place.  Meanwhile  it  is 
interesting  to  remember  that  of  the  95,000 

11  Gulick,  S.  L.,  "The  American  Japanese  Problem":  New 
York,  1914-;  p.  95. 


JAPANESE  IN  CALIFORNIA  33 

Japanese  in  the  United  States,  55,000  are 
found  in  California,  or  about  three-fifths  of 
the  whole;  Washington  ranking  next  with 
one-sixth,  and  the  matter  being  negligible 
elsewhere,  except,  of  course — and  this  is  a 
large  exception! — as  it  affects  the  nation  po 
litically. 

Not  only  is  the  Japanese  population  heav 
ily  localized  in  California,  but,  within  the 
state  itself,  large  masses  are  concentrated 
in  restricted  communities.  Los  Angeles 
county,  the  home  of  the  writer,  contains  11,- 
500,  or  more  than  one-fourth  of  the  total; 
8,000  living  in  the  city  of  Los  Angeles,  and 
7,000  in  San  Francisco.  As  Mr.  Rowell^ 
says,  there  is  very  little  organized  anti-Japa 
nese  sentiment  in  Southern  California,  as 
this  is  the  non-union  section  of  the  state,  the 
opposition  being  strongest  in  the  closely 
unionized  northern  cities.  Moreover,  Japa 
nese  landholdings  in  the  southern  section  are 
relatively  insignificant,  whereas  in  certain 
narrowly  circumscribed  northern  localities 
may  be  found  "a  miniature  of  Hawaiian  so- 


34  THE  JAPANESE  CRISIS 

cial  conditions/'  from  which  "the  most  in 
tense  feeling"  arises.12 

This  is  due  largely  to  the  all-important 
fact  that  the  immigrants  have  tended  to  con 
centrate  not  only  in  a  few  restricted  locali 
ties,  but  in  a  single  occupation,  that  of  farm 
ing;  65  per  cent  of  the  Japanese  in  Cali 
fornia  being  engaged  in  agriculture,  15  per 
cent  in  domestic  service  and  15  per  cent  in 
various  services  to  their  fellow  countrymen, 
and  the  remaining  5  per  cent  as  officials, 
professionals,  and  students.13 

Rowell  shows — and  this  is  most  important 
— that  the  principal  production  of  the  state 
is  really  dominated  by  the  Japanese.  On 
the  farms  operated  by  Japanese,  practically 
all  the  labor  (96  per  cent)  is  also  Japanese. 
On  the  farms  operated  by  white  farmers,  ac 
cording  to  the  investigation  made  in  1909, 
of  the  total  labor  employed,  54  per  cent  was 
white,  36  per  cent  Japanese,  and  the  remain 
ing  10  per  cent  Japanese,  Mexicans,  Hin- 

12  Rowell,  C.  H.,  in  The  World's  Work,  as  cited,  p.  198. 
is  "Special  State  Investigation  of  1909,"  given  as  Appen 
dix  B  by  Gulick,  as  cited. 


JAPANESE  IN  CALIFORNIA  35 

dus,  and  Indians.  But  the  most  striking 
fact  is  the  classification  of  occupations.  For 
instance,  counting  the  farms  of  white  farm 
ers  alone,  nearly  nine-tenths  of  the  berries, 
two-thirds  of  the  sugar-beets,  more  than  half 
of  the  grapes  and  nursery  products,  46  per 
cent  of  the  vegetables,  and  more  than  one- 
third  of  the  citrus  and  deciduous  fruits,  were 
raised  by  Japanese  labor.  At  the  other  ex 
treme,  of  hops  only  8  per  cent  and  of  hay  , 
and  of  grain  only  6  per  cent  were  raised  by  / 
Japanese  labor,  and  of  miscellaneous  cropsf 
less  than  20  per  cent.  On  farms  where 
whites  were  employed  exclusively,  no  berries 
nor  nursery  products  were  grown,  and  few 
vegetables,  except  beans.  In  other  words, 
while  the  Japanese  do  an  inconsiderable  part 
of  the  entire  business  of  California,  and  very 
little  of  those  sorts  of  farming  which  Cali 
fornia  has  in  common  with  other  states,  they 
practically  dominate  the  labor  of  the  charac 
teristic  and  horticultural  productions  of  Cal 
ifornia.14 

uRowell,  C.    H.,   in   The    World's   Work,   as   cited,  pp. 


36  THE  JAPANESE  CRISIS 

In  justice  to  California  it  should  always 
be  clearly  remembered  that  no  arrogant  prej 
udice  against  the  Japanese  as  of  inferior 
quality  contributes  to  the  concern  of  our 
thoughtful  people  in  this  problem.  The 
most  vehement  statement  of  opposition  to 
all  forms  of  Japanese  immigration  ever 
brought  to  the  writer's  notice  contains  the 
words:  "We  know  that  in  many  respects 
they  are  racially  superior  to  us."  Another 

198-199.  He  adds:  "The  explanation  is  found  in  the  pe 
culiarly  migratory  conditions  of  California  farm  labor.  The 
fruit  crops  are  seasonal.  They  require  a  great  deal  of  labor 
for  a  short  time  every  year,  and  very  little  labor  the  rest 
of  the  year.  Fortunately,  the  seasonal  demand  varies  with 
the  different  fruits.  There  is  a  harvest  of  some  sort  going 
on  somewhere  in  California  practically  every  month  of  the 
year.  Oranges,  for  instance;  ripen  in  midwinter,  grapes 
in  the  fall,  deciduous  fruits  in  the  summer,  and  berries 
in  the  spring.  There  is  plenty  of  work,  but  not  continu 
ously  in  any  one  place.  If  farms  are  large,  producing 
much  fruit  and  few  human  beings,  this  work  can  only  be 
done  by  migratory  labor.  Much  of  the  work,  also,  like 
thinning  sugar  beets,  or  cutting  raisin  grapes,  must  be  done 
squatting.  Oriental  labor  adapts  itself  to  both  these  con 
ditions,  and  since  the  Chinese  have  grown  old  and  few,  the 
Japanese  have  taken  their  places."  (Their  habit  of  sitting 
on  the  floor  has  inured  the  Japanese  to  squatting,  so  that 
in  the  squatting  occupations  they  greatly  surpass  white 
labor  in  efficiency.  White  labor,  moreover,  with  its  devo 
tion  to  home,  is  non-migratory. — J.  A.  B.  s.) 


JAPANESE  IN  CALIFORNIA  37 

strong  statement  of  a  similar  character  closes 
with  the  significant  language, — "I  am  not  at 
all  satisfied  in  my  own  mind  that  the  Japa 
nese  are  not  as  a  people  potentially  superior 
to  us.  However,  we  have  the  lead  in  the  de 
velopment  of  democracy  and  should  keep  at 
this  work,  without  actual  hindrance,  for  the 
good  of  the  world." 

Enough  has  already  been  written  to  show 
that  there  was  a  California-Japanese  prob 
lem  previous  to  the  enactment  of  the  Alien 
Land  Law  in  1913.  Before  we  consider  that 
law  it  may  be  well  to  examine  three  ques 
tions — nationalistic,  sociological,  and  eco 
nomic — which  Calif ornians  who  are  brought 
into  daily  contact  with  the  Japanese  are  con 
stantly  asking,  and  which  contain  the  gist  of 
the  problem  as  seen  from  the  California  view 
point. 


IS  JAPAN  MILITANT? 


IS  JAPAN  MILITANT? 

CALIFORNIA  is  little  given  to  "war  scares," 
being  inclined  to  laugh  at  the  fulminations  of 
perfervid  Merrimac  heroes  and  to  frown  on 
the  misrepresentations  of  Hearst  newspapers 
as  malicious  and  mischievous.1  But  she  in 
creasingly  reads  Japanese  history,  and  ob 
serves  current  events  in  the  Orient.  She 
knows  the  old  Japanese  proverb,  "Among 
flowers,  the  cherry,  among  men,  the  war 
rior,"  and  wonders  whether  the  military 
ideals  ofBushido,  "the  Way  of  the  Warrior," 
are  ascendant  in  modern  times  as  in  ancient. 
She  has  learned  that  the  institution  of  hara- 
ki?i  originated  in  an  age-long  military  drill; 
the  highest  test  of  physical  courage  being  the 
willingness  to  yield  one's  own  life,  and  this 
ceremonial  of  suicide  at  behest  of  a  superior 
being  so  schooled  by  constant  rehearsal  into 
the  minds  of  young  samurai  that  when  fac 
ing  the  test  of  supreme  surrender  they  were 

i"If   one   dog   barks    a    falsehood,   ten    thousand    others 
spread  it  as  a  truth." — Japanese  proverb. 

41 


42  THE  JAPANESE  CRISIS 

able  to  meet  the  bloody  reality  without  a 
tremor  and  with  perfect  composure.2 

This  elaboration  of  suicide  into  a  national 
institution,  practised  and  belauded  for  cen 
turies,  is  the  classic  example  of  militaristic 
drill;  has  it  inscribed  an  ineffaceable  char 
acter,  or  are  the  Japanese,  like  the  Ameri 
cans,  now  would-be  patrons  of  peace? 

It  is  by  no  means  an  idle  curiosity  that 
prompts  this  question.  Japanese  genius  has 
appropriated  to  such  purpose  occidental  les 
sons  in  hygiene  and  medicine,  sanitation  and 
surgery,  that  Japan's  population  has  doubled 
since  western  civilization  was  adopted.3 
Only  one-twelfth,  or  thereabouts,  of  the  na 
tive  territory  is  arable,  and  the  people  must 
live.  As  this  pressure  of  population  pushes 
out  into  unoccupied  territory  here  and  there 
on  the  surface  of  the  globe,  at  such  points  as 
Hawaii  and  Mexico  and  South  America,  will 

2  Murray,  D.,  "Japan":  New  York,  1901;  p.  286.  A.  B. 
Mitford,  in  the  Appendix  of  his  "Tales  of  Old  Japan" 
(London,  1888),  has  given  a  most  graphic  and  impressive 
account  of  this  remarkable  ceremony  and  its  effects. 

sGulick,  S.  L.,  as  cited,  p.  236. 


IS  JAPAN  MILITANT?  43 

the  colonists  become  politically  acclimatized, 
or  will  these  lands  become  Japanese  colonies? 
Will  the  home  government  be  content  to  see 
its  subjects  happily  assimilated  by  foreign 
governments,  or  will  it  insist  on  a  "benevo 
lent  assimilation"  of  its  own?  In  other 
words,  is  Japan  bent  on  the  ambition  of  be 
coming  a  world- wide  colonial  power,  by  mil 
itary  domination  like  that  of  the  greater 
European  governments,  or  will  it  cast  off  its 
samurai  armor  and  join  America  as  a  Dai 
On  Jin  ("great  friendly  nation")  in  quest  of 
the  day  when,  as  Victor  Hugo  eloquently 
prophesied,  the  only  battlefield  will  be  the 
market  opening  to  commerce  and  the  mind 
to  new  ideas? 

My  own  experience  in  contact  with  the 
mind  of  young  Japan  was  not  encouraging. 
I  shall  not  soon  forget  the  result  when  I  once 
assigned  to  an  advanced  class  of  students  an 
essay  on  the  subject,  "Why  I  Study  Eng 
lish,"  and  the  naive  conclusion  of  one  of  the 
brightest  lads  appeared  as  follows: 

"The  English  is  the  language  of  the  most 


44  THE  JAPANESE  CRISIS 

strongest  nations.  Whosoever  wish  to  con 
quer  any  country,  he  must  know  the  coun 
try  and  get  the  people's  confidence.  But 
this  will  not  be  done  without  he  understand 
the  language.  Now  we  will  learn  the  Eng 
lish.  And  then  our  navy  shall  sail  across  the 
sea,  we  will  conquer  England,  we  will  con 
quer  also  our  dear  Teacher's  country,  ano! 
the  flag  of  Great  Japan  will  wave  above  the 
all  world." 

Of  course  I  should  not  cite  this  emanation 
of  a  single  youthful  mind  if  it  were  not  typ 
ical  of  much  of  the  thought  of  young  Japan 
as  I  knew  it.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  also  a 
matter  of  fact  that  the  two  greatest  construc 
tive  leaders  that  Japan  has  developed  from 
among  its  common  people  have  been  distin 
guished  not  so  much  for  martial  prowess  as 
for  supreme  achievements  that  could  not 
have  come  about  except  by  and  through 
peace. 

The  first  was  lyeyasu,  founder  of  the 
Tokugawa  shogunate,  whose  splendid  tomb 
is  the  central  shrine  of  beautiful  Nikko.  He 


IS  JAPAN  MILITANT?  45 

was  the  last  and  greatest  of  a  medieval 
triumvirate.  Like  his  two  predecessors, 
lyeyasu  was  an  able  general.  Unlike 
them,  he  knew  the  value  of  peace  for  the 
real  development  of  a  people.  His  first 
act  was  to  found  Yedo — now  Tokyo — as 
his  capital.  Foreseeing  the  future  great 
ness  of  this  "door  of  the  bay,"  he  set 
an  army  of  three  hundred  thousand  labor 
ers  to  work  in  the  sunken  marshes  or  upon 
the  towering  hills,  grading  streets  and 
cutting  canals.  His  faith  was  justified 
within  a  half -century,  for  the  new  capital  by 
that  time  held  a  quarter-million  inhabitants. 
Further,  he  established  easy  communication 
between  the  new  capital  and  the  old,  at 
Kyoto,  building  a  great  road  of  over  three 
hundred  miles  (it  is  still  a  good  road)  with 
fifty-two  stations  for  shelter  and  supplies. 
Indeed,  he  marked  out  the  width  of  all  the 
roadways  of  the  Empire,  arranged  ferries, 
and  provided  for  the  regulation  of  society. 
Then,  having  shut  out  the  disturbing  influ 
ence  of  meddlesome  foreigners  by  the  drastic 


46  THE  JAPANESE  CRISIS 

enforcement  of  an  uncompromising  Act  of 
Exclusion,  he  brought  about  a  revival  of  let 
ters  and  assiduously  sent  all  of  his  subjects  to 
school,  having  founded  for  this  purpose  a 
peace  that  lasted  unbroken  for  two  hundred 
and  sixty-eight  years,  or  until  Perry  knocked 
at  his  "door  of  the  bay"  in  1853.  There  was 
nothing  magical  about  Perry's  performance 
whatsoever.  The  Japanese  were  ready  for 
his  coming,  because  they  had  enjoyed  two 
and  a  half  centuries  of  assiduous,  unbroken 
schooling.  And  the  Japanese  are  prouder 
of  lyeyasu  to-day  than  of  any  of  the  mighty 
warriors  who  preceded  him.  Their  chief 
feudal  hero  was  a  peacemaker. 

The  second  greatest  name  in  Japanese 
popular  history  is  perhaps  that  of  Ito — every 
whit  as  great  among  moderns  as  lyeyasu 
among  feudal  leaders.  He  fell  (in  1909)  at 
the  hands  of  an  assassin,  but  no  hand  can 
strike  down  his  monument,  which,  through 
the  patronage  of  his  master,  the  Meiji  Em 
peror,  is  nothing  less  than  Japan  of  to-day. 
In  his  country  they  said  of  him,  Hito- 


IS  JAPAN  MILITANT?  47 

tabi  ashi  agureba,  tenka  ugoku  ("when  once 
he  lifts  his  foot,  the  universe  trembles")  ; 
and  yet  his  chief  weapon  was  not  the 
sword,  but  the  pen.  It  was  he  who  inspired 
the  death-warrant  of  feudalism,  which 
meant  the  restoration  of  the  Emperor  to 
actual  power,  and  it  was  Ito  who  wrote  the 
Japanese  constitution  and  then  secured  its 
establishment.  His  name  is  linked  with  al 
most  every  great  work  of  constructive  states 
manship  in  the  history  of  new  Japan.4  To 
do  his  stupendous  task  he  required  and  de 
sired  peace,  being  driven  to  the  side  of  war 
only  when  western  nations  had  convinced 
Japan  that  the  sole  way  to  secure  just  recog 
nition  was  through  war. 

Is  war,  then,  the  chief  ideal  or  ambition  of 
the  Japanese  people?  lyeyasu,  not  Nobu- 
naga  or  Hideyoshi,  is  their  feudal  hero.  Ito, 
not  Nogi  or  Togo,  is  their  hero  to-day,  next 
to  the  late  Emperor,  whose  name  (Mutsu- 
hito,  "the  meek  man")  symbolizes  the  peace 

*Brinkley,  F.,  "Japan":  Boston  and  Tokyo,  1902;  vol.  iv, 
p.  236. 


48  THE  JAPANESE  CRISIS 

which   was  undoubtedly   his   cherished   de 
sire. 

Certainly  it  is  true  to-day,  however,  that 
a  large  number  of  Americans,  especially  on 
the  Pacific  coast,  believe  that  the  ideals  and 
ambitions  of  Japan  are  concerned  chiefly 
with  war.  Even  so  sane  and  thoughtful  a 
Californian  as  George  H.  Maxwell,  in  a 
book  attacking  American  militarism  and 
suggesting  a  noble  substitute  for  it,  con 
jures—with  the  aid  of  Homer  Lea — vivid 
pictures  of  Japanese  military  aggressive 
ness.5  He  says,  however,  that  there  are  no 
people  on  earth  who  more  richly  deserve  and 
merit  the  good  will  of  other  nations ; 6  and 
adds  the  noteworthy  words:  "The  present 
European  war  is  the  result  of  primary 
causes  that  were  so  deeply  rooted  in  wrong 
and  injustice,  that  no  human  power  could 
eradicate  them.  It  is  different  with  Japan. 
We  have  no  long  standing  or  deeply  rooted 

5  Maxwell,  G.  H.,  "Our  National  Defense,  or,  the  Patri 
otism  of  Peace":  Washington  and  New  Orleans,  1915; 
chapters  vi,  vii,  x. 

e  p.  136. 


IS  JAPAN  MILITANT?  49 

controversy  with  Japan  and  we  need 
never  have  if  we  meet  the  economic  prob 
lem."  7 

The  writer  believes  that  Japan's  most  seri 
ous  economic  problem — namely,  the  pres 
sure  of  an  already  dense  and  rapidly  increas 
ing  population  within  a  narrowly  restricted 
and  largely  unarable  territory — may  well  be 
solved  on  the  adjacent  mainland  of  Asia. 
Mr.  Y.  Takekoshi,  M.P.,  discussing  his  Em 
pire's  colonial  policy,  has  said: 

"Korea  has  room  for  ten  million  immi 
grants,  and  Formosa  for  two  million.  So 
we  have  to-day  both  colonies  and  colonists, 
like  England.  We  do  not  need  any  more 
colonies  than  we  already  have.  Any  one 
who  attempts  to  acquire  more  would  act  con 
trary  to  the  sound  Imperial  policy,  and  for 
his  own  private  adventure.  Japan's  Im 
perial  policy  to-day  calls  for  the  develop 
ment  of  Korea  and  of  Manchuria,  as  well  as 
of  Formosa,  and  Japan's  colonial  policy 

7  Maxwell,  G.  H.,  as  cited,  pp.  155-156.  (Italics,  the 
present  writer's,) 


50  THE  JAPANESE  CRISIS 

should  not  be  otherwise  than  to  fulfil  her  re 
sponsibility  toward  these  lands."8 

As  for  the  frequently  bruited  alarums 
about  Japan's  desire  to  colonize  and  after 
wards  control  the  Philippine  Islands,  a 
glance  at  the  map  will  show  that  Korea  and 
Manchuria  lie  far  north  of  the  tropical 
Philippines.  The  Japanese,  like  ourselves, 
are  acclimatized  to  the  temperate  zone,  and 
do  not  thrive  in  the  tropics.  Their  expe 
rience  even  in  Formosa  has  been  disastrous. 
Professor  Story  of  Harvard  says  of  Jap 
anese  settlers:  "They  have  never  been  a 
strong  element  in  the  Philippines,  even  in 
the  long  period  of  Spanish  rule.  Japan's 
surplus  population  is  just  now  expanding  in 
the  direction  of  the  mainland,  chiefly  into 
Korea  and  its  hinterland.  From  the  Japa 
nese  element  of  the  immigration  into  the 
Philippines,  the  United  States  and  the 
Philippine  government  need  not  expect  any 

s  Japan's  Colonial  Policy,  in  "Japan's  Message  to  Amer 
ica":  Tokyo,  1914;  pp.  110-111. 


IS  JAPAN  MILITANT?  51 

serious  problem."9  Dr.  Murray  Bartlett, 
formerly  President  of  the  University  of  the 
Philippines,  is  willing  to  be  quoted  to  the 
same  effect. 

Journalists  and  other  people  who  talk 
glibly  of  Japan's  engaging  in  expensive  for 
eign  wars  should  familiarize  themselves  with 
the  disastrous  sequel  of  the  "glorious  vic 
tory"  over  Russia.  When  the  Japanese 
troops  returned  they  were  everywhere  ac 
claimed  by  immense  multitudes;  meats  and 
drinks  and  garlands  were  lavished  on  them, 
while  the  Emperor  himself  paid  homage  to 
his  illustrious  servants;  but — to  follow  a 
European  eye-witness  who  has  poignantly 
described  what  ensued  when  the  shouting 
and  the  tumult  died, — it  happened  that 
when  these  triumphant  and  feted  warriors 
returned  to  their  homes  and  their  domestic 
duties,  they  found  themselves  face  to  face 
with  the  most  sordid  cares  of  life ;  and  that, 

9  Story,  R.   M.,  "Oriental   Immigration  into  the  Philip 
pines,"  in  "Annals,"  as  cited,  p.  170. 


52  THE  JAPANESE  CRISIS 

in  many  cases,  the  old  soldier  had  to  seek 
vainly  for  so  much  work  as  would  fill  even 
the  thin  larder  of  a  Japanese  household ;  and 
to  go  starving  from  the  home  of  a  starving 
wife  and  starving  children. 

M.  Naudeau,  in  his  brilliant  work  on 
Modern  Japan,  which  was  "crowned"  by  the 
French  Academy,10  has  cited  some  startling 
figures.  The  war  with  China,  in  1894, 
brought  the  Japanese  budget  up  from  to  83,- 
000,000  yen11  annually  to  168,000,000, 
while  the  war  with  Russia  in  1904  lifted  it  to 
505,000,000,  and  the  public  debt  had  risen 
enormously  during  the  same  period, — that  is 
to  say,  from  4.40  yen  per  capita  in  1893  to 
46  yen  thirteen  years  later,  a  ten-fold  in 
crease! 

This  gigantic  burden  involved,  of  course, 
equally  gigantic  taxes.  Everything,  says 
M.  Naudeau,  is  taxed  in  Japan.  There  are 
taxes  not  only  on  liquors  of  all  kinds,  but 
also  on  such  articles  as  sugar,  medicines,  and 

10  Naudeau,    L.,   "Le   Japon    Moderne;    Son    Evolution": 
Paris,  1911. 

11  A  yen  is  fifty  cents. 


IS  JAPAN  MILITANT?  53 

railway  tickets,  while  tobacco,  salt,  and  cam 
phor  have  been  taken  over  as  government 
monopolies,  and  exorbitant  prices  affixed  to 
them.  In  addition  to  an  import  duty  of  15 
per  cent  on  manufactured  articles,  native 
manufactures  are  also  heavily  mulcted ;  while 
every  citizen  with  an  annual  income  of  more 
than  $150  pays  income  tax.  Chancellor 
Jordan,  of  Stanford  University,  said  in  a  re 
cent  address  that  whereas  in  America  his  an 
nual  direct  taxes  amount  to  about  $120,  with 
an  equal  sum  in  indirect  taxes,  if  he  lived  in 
Japan  he  would  have  to  pay  $4,500  a  year  on 
the  same  property  and  income.12  "Japan 
pays  very  dearly  for  her  glory,"  declares  the 
French  writer;  "she  pays  in  sufferings  for 
which  she  can  foresee  no  remedy.  Japan 
grows  in  power  and  in  prestige,  but  she  im 
molates  herself,  and  the  pyre  on  which  she 
writhes  is  built  of  piled-up  miseries." 

Sympathy,  and  not  suspicion,  should  we 
give  her  at  this  time,  leading  her  thoughts 

12  California  Outlook,  October,  1915. 

13  Naudeau,  L.,  as  cited,  p.  256. 


54  THE  JAPANESE  CRISIS 

from  the  altar   of  militarism   toward  the 
shrine  of  a  friendly  peace. 

M.  Naudeau,  who  witnessed  the  amazing 
outburst  of  wrath  that  occurred  in  Tokyd  in 
1904  when  the  people  believed  that  their  gov 
ernment  had  concluded  at  Portsmouth  a 
peace  which  robbed  them  of  their  dues,  has 
depicted  more  clearly  than  any  other  writer 
the  volcanic  ebullitions  of  a  people — di 
rected  at  that  time  against  their  own  govern 
ment — who  habitually  wear  a  crust  of  smil 
ing  calm.  Stirred  by  this  vivid  French  pic 
ture,  Mr.  T.  P.  O'Connor  has  written: 
"There  is  in  individual  as  well  as  in  national 
character,  one  type  which  is  always  liable  to 
give  us  some  unpleasant  surprises.  You 
meet  a  man  or  a  woman  who  is  apparently 
soft,  yielding  and  self-controlled.  You 
may  try  them  with  a  certain  want  of  con 
sideration  for  their  feelings ;  and  finding  that 
you  are  met  with  nothing  but  the  same  agree 
able  smile  and  unquestioning  docility,  you 
rush  to  the  conclusion  that  they  are  incapable 
of  a  moment  of  fierce  anger  or  volcanic  pas- 


IS  JAPAN  MILITANT?  55 

sion.  But  you  find  yourself  suddenly  and 
unexpectedly  awakened.  What  you  have 
not  realized  is  that  what  you  have  said  or 
done  has  been  profoundly  resented,  and  that 
though  the  resentment  has  not  been  ex 
pressed,  it  has  deepened  in  consequence ;  and 
that  some  fine  day  it  bursts  forth  with  all  the 
rage  and  devastation  of  a  volcano.  I  have 
seen  that  happen  among  my  own  people;  I 
have  seen  it  happen  even  more  frequently 
among  French  people.  There  is  no  kindlier 
people  in  the  world  than  the  Irish;  no  more 
forgiving;  no  more  polite;  but  there  comes  a 
moment  when  they  feel  themselves  touched 
in  some  point  of  honor  or  self-respect;  and 
then  they  burst  into  fury.  .  .  .  And  when 
a  broad-minded  Japanese  discusses  with  you, 
in  the  confidence  of  private  conversation,  the 
character  of  his  people,  this  is  also  the  view 
he  takes.  Count  Okuma,  for  instance,  dis 
cussing  this  very  question  with  the  author 
of  this  book,  summed  up  the  character  of  his 
people  in  these  words:  'The  Japanese  are 
not  cruel  but  they  are  turbulent,  vindictive 


56  THE  JAPANESE  CRISIS 

and  irascible' ;  a  portrait  which,  though  terse, 
is  sufficient  to  reveal  to  the  Europeans  how 
little  they  have  grasped  the  depths  in  Japa 
nese  life."  14 

This  fact  of  the  Japanese  temperament  is 
the  focal  point  of  importance  in  this  whole 
discussion.  All  Europeans  or  Americans 
that  have  lived  among  Japanese  and  had 
even  a  modicum  of  sympathetic  discern 
ment  will  agree  with  Mr.  O'Connor.  Elihu 
Root,15  then  Secretary  of  State,  grasped  this 
point  as  the  center  of  possible  trouble  when 
he  said  with  reference  to  the  San  Francisco 
"separate  school  order": 

"There  was  one  great  and  serious  question 
underlying  the  whole  subject  which  made  all 
questions  ...  as  to  whether  the  resolution 
of  the  school  board  was  valid  or  not — seem 
temporary  and  comparatively  unimportant. 
It  was  not  a  question  of  war  with  Japan. 

i*  O'Connor,  T.  P.,  in  T.  P.'s  Weekly:  London,  Jan.  10, 
1913;  p.  34. 

is  In  an  address  delivered  in  Washington  City,  April  19, 
1907;  quoted  in  "America  to  Japan":  New  York,  1915;  pp. 
178-179. 


IS  JAPAN  MILITANT?  57 

All  the  foolish  talk  about  war  was  purely 
sensational  and  imaginative.  There  was 
never  even  friction  between  the  two  Govern 
ments.  The  question  was,  What  state  of 
feeling  would  be  created  between  the  great 
body  of  the  people  of  the  United  States  and 
the  great  body  of  the  people  of  Japan  .as  a 
result  of  the  treatment  given  to  the  Japa 
nese  in  this  country? 

"What  was  to  be  the  effect  upon  that 
proud,  sensitive,  highly  civilized  people 
across  the  Pacific  of  the  discourtesy,  insult, 
imputations  of  inferiority  and  abuse  aimed 
at  them  in  the  columns  of  American  news 
papers  and  from  the  platforms  of  American 
public  meetings  ?  What  would  be  the  effect 
upon  our  own  people  of  the  responses  that 
natural  resentment  for  such  treatment 
would  elicit  from  the  Japanese?" 

If  the  writer  has  dwelt  long  upon  this  sub 
ject,  and  cited  lengthy  quotations,  it  is  be 
cause  of  his  conviction  that  herein  is  some 
thing  for  American  politicians  and  jour 
nalists  to  ponder  over.  Not  only  are  the 


58  THE  JAPANESE  CRISIS 

Japanese  one  of  the  most  high-spirited  and 
sensitive  people  in  the  world,  but  the  danger 
of  sudden  and  irresistible  popular  explosions 
is  greatly  heightened  by  the  existence  of  a 
peculiar  class  known  as  soshi.  These  are  the 
hoodlum  heirs  of  those  medieval  heroes  called 
ronin,  or  "wave  men,"  who  turbulently  rolled 
about  the  country  wreaking  revenge  for  any 
insults  offered  to  their  lords.16  Soshi  have 
made  themselves  felt  in  recent  years,  during 
times  of  international  resentment,  not  only 
against  foreigners  (as  in  the  attack  on  Li 
Hung  Chang  at  Shimonoseki  in  1895),  but 
in  murderous  assaults  on  supposedly  pro- 
foreign  Japanese  statesmen,  such  as  Count 
Okuma,  who  escaped  with  the  loss  of  a 
leg,  and  Viscount  Mori,  successfully  assassi 
nated. 

The  Japanese  government  itself  is  one  of 
the  wisest  and  most  cool-headed  govern 
ments  in  the  world:  being  constituted,  by  a 
rigorous  selective  process,  of  men  inured  to 

is  See  Mitford,  A.  B.,  as  cited,  pp.  1-24;  and  John  Mase- 
field  in  "The  Faithful":  New  York,  1915'. 


IS  JAPAN  MILITANT?  59 

iron  self-control,  trained  to  a  broad  and  sym 
pathetic  vision  of  foreign  affairs  as  well  as 
to  keen  insight  into  domestic  perplexities, 
and  anxious,  with  the  wisdom  of  a  far  per 
spective,  to  lighten  the  already  heavy  social 
burdens  of  the  muttering  people,  to  say 
nothing  of  the  avoidance  of  piling  up  the 
crushing  weight  of  added  armaments.  The 
peace  of  Japan  is  safe  if  left  in  the  hands  of 
her  statesmen.  But  the  elements  repre 
sented  by  the  soshi  have  more  than  once 
forced  the  hand  of  the  government  into  an 
impetuous  war.  The  danger  of  some  sensi 
tive  popular  explosion  is  the  only  menace  to 
our  peace  with  Japan.  He  who  lightly  ap 
plies  a  match  to  this  tinder  is,  however  ig 
norant  or  thoughtless,  a  criminal  against  the 
human  race. 

Like  other  sensitive  and  high-spirited 
races  and  individuals,  the  Japanese  have  a 
delightful  converse  side  of  generous  respon 
siveness  to  just  and  kindly  treatment. 
What  more  striking  illustration  could  be 
offered  of  this  than  the  early  incident  in  the 


60  THE  JAPANESE  CRISIS 

life  of  the  now  aged  Ebara,  which  deter 
mined  him  as  the  life-long  friend  of  America, 
so  that,  when  a  commission  was  sent  from 
Japan  in  1913  to  allay  the  bitter  feelings  of 
the  Japanese  in  California  roused  by  the 
Alien  Law  discussion,  he  was  naturally 
chosen  as  one  of  three  ?  The  incident  is  this : 
When,  in  the  'sixties,  all  the  other  foreign 
ministers  left  Tokyo  because  of  the  fear  of 
assassination,  our  American  minister,  Town- 
send  Harris,  alone  remained,  saying  that  he 
would  trust  the  Japanese  government  and 
people.  It  was  his  habit  to  ride  out  daily  on 
horseback,  unarmed  and  unattended,  an 
extremely  dangerous  thing  at  that  time. 
Young  Ebara  was  so  impressed  by  the  cour 
age  and  spirit  of  the  man  that  he  procured 
an  appointment  from  the  Shogun  to  act 
gratuitously  as  Mr.  Harris's  personal  guard. 
From  that  time  to  this  Mr.  Ebara  has  been 
an  ardent  admirer  of  America;17  just  as 
Baron  Shibusawa  says  of  Harris's  gallant 

i7Gulick,  S.  L.,  as  cited,  p.  105. 


IS  JAPAN  MILITANT?  61 

conduct  in  another  critical  circumstance, 
"This  incident  won  for  America  the  good 
will  of  Japan."  18 

Another  of  these  1913  commissioners  of 
conciliation,  the  Hon.  J.  Soyeda,  prepared, 
on  his  return  to  Japan,  a  "Survey  of  the 
Japanese  Question  in  California,"  compre 
hensive  and  statesmanlike,  and  urging  better 
mutual  acquaintance  as  the  proper  solution. 
He  counseled  his  people  residing  in  America 
to  "strive  more  and  more  for  assimilation 
with  the  people  and  observance  of  the  laws 
and  customs  of  the  land.  .  .  .  They  must 
work  strenuously  to  remedy  their  faults  and 
do  nothing  to  startle  or  irritate  the  people 
with  whom  they  are  living."  On  his  people 
at  home  he  urged  "patience  and  careful  con 
sideration,"  with  "campaigns  of  education 
along  permanent  and  broad  lines  with  the 
aim  to  enlighten  the  public  opinion,  not  only 
in  the  two  countries  concerned,  but  all  the 
world  over." 

is  "Japan's  Message  to  America,"  as  cited,  p.  21. 


62  THE  JAPANESE  CRISIS 

Mr.  Soyeda  is  a  graduate  of  the  Imperial 
University  at  Tokyo,  and  has  also  studied 
at  Cambridge  and  Heidelberg.  He  came 
to  the  United  States  in  1913  representing 
the  Associated  Chambers  of  Commerce  in 
Japan.  The  San  Francisco  Examiner  of 
October  2,  1913,  dealt  with  his  friendly  and 
courteous  pamphlet  in  the  following  impu 
dent  terms: 

"It  is  with  thankfulness,  gratitude,  humil 
ity  and  a  deep  sense  of  being  properly  re 
buked  that  we  receive  this  f ulmination  of  the 
Hon.  Juichi.  We  shall  not  selfishly  enjoy 
this  feast  of  reason  'and  flow  of  language 
alone.  At  least  half  of  it  shall  be  fed  to  the 
office  cat — may  his  venerable  whiskers  flour 
ish  forever!  The  other  moiety  will  be  for 
warded  to  a  noted  pro-Japanese  American 
statesman,  who  engages  in  lecturing,  breed 
ing  doves,  and  Secretarying  of  State  with 
equal  grace,  facility  and  financial  success. 
In  a  general  way,  Honorable  Pamphlet  in 
forms  us  that  Honorable  Japanese  is  truly 
morally  superior  to  unfortunate  American 


IS  JAPAN  MILITANT?  63 

inhabitableness,  being  truth,  firmness,  up 
rightness  and  faithfulness  in  gentlemen's 
agreement,  therefore  is  perfectly  agreeable 
to  naturalization  and  intermarriage,  which 
afford  happy  solution  to  Honorable  Immi 
gration  Question  not  yet  impacted  upon  yel 
low  American  press."  19 

It  is  a  far  cry  from  this  sort  of  impudence 
to  the  gallant  character  that  attracted  Mr. 
Soyeda's  fellow  commissioner  to  a  life-long 
friendship  for  America.  Townsend  Harris 
never  truckled  to  the  Japanese;  they  would 
have  despised  him  if  he  had.  On  the  con 
trary,  he  was  one  of  the  firmest  representa 
tives  we  have  ever  had  at  a  foreign  court. 
He  was  brave  arid  firm,  but  he  was  also  con 
siderate  and  just.  Our  Japanese  problem 
will  vanish  into  thin  air  if  we  substitute  in 
dealing  with  it  the  spirit  of  Harris  for  the 
spirit  of  Hearst;  the  spirit  of  the  gentle 
man  and  statesman  for  that  of  the  journal 
ist  one  of  whose  writers  was  actually  auda 
cious  enough  to  boast  in  a  published  book 

is  See  Gulick,  S.  L.,  as  cited,  pp.  107-108. 


64  THE  JAPANESE  CRISIS 

that  his  paymaster  brought  on  the  Ameri 
can  war  with  Spain.20 

soCreelman,  J.,  "On  the  Great  Highway":  Boston,  1901, 
ch.  ix.,  Familiar  Glimpses  of  Yellow  Journalism.  For  re 
cent  examples  of  grotesquely  mendacious  attempts  to  fo 
ment  strife  with  Japan,  see  files  of  the  Los  Angeles  Ex 
aminer,  etc.,  October,  1915. 


ARE  THE  JAPANESE  ASSIMILABLE? 


ARE  THE  JAPANESE  ASSIMILABLE? 

RACIAL  antipathy  does  not  arise  in  the 
cool  seclusion  of  the  study,  but  in  the  warmth 
of  mass  contact.  There  are  numerous  in 
stances  of  northern  doctrinaires  who,  going 
to  live  in  the  South,  have  turned  from  "ne- 
grophiles"  into  "negrophobes,"  becoming 
infected  with  race  prejudice  to  a  greater 
degree  than  their  already  well  inoculated 
Southern  neighbors.  Regarding  our  pres 
ent  problem,  I  would  like  to  offer  a  contrast 
almost  dramatic:  that  of  a  New  England 
poet  and  a  California  farmer,  the  poet  lec 
turing  (but  not  on  the  Japanese  question) 
before  the  Lowell  Institute  in  Boston,  the 
farmer  coming  straight  from  his  sweaty  con 
tact  with  Japanese  laborers  to  a  hearing  be 
fore  the  1913  legislature  in  Sacramento. 

Said  Professor  Woodberry: 

"It  belongs  to  a  highly  developed  race  to 
become,  in  a  true  sense,  aristocratic — a  treas 
ury  of  its  best  in  practical  and  spiritual 

67 


68  THE  JAPANESE  CRISIS 

types,  and  then  to  disappear  in  the  surround 
ing  types  of  men.  So  Athens  dissolved  like 
a  pearl  in  the  cup  of  the  Mediterranean,  and 
Rome  in  the  cup  of  Europe,  and  Judea  in 
the  cup  of  the  Universal  Communion.  .  .  . 
Nay,  if  the  aristocracy  of  the  whole  white 
race  is  so  to  melt  in  a  world  of  the  colored 
races  of  the  earth,  I  for  one  should  only,  re 
joice  in  such  a  divine  triumph  of  the  sacri 
ficial  idea  in  history."  1  And  the  Boston 
audience  applauded. 

Said  the  gaunt  farmer  at  Sacramento: 

"Up  at  Elk  Grove,  where  I  live,  on  the 
next  farm  a  Japanese  man  lives,  and  a  white 
woman.  That  woman  is  carrying  around  a 
baby  in  her  arms.  What  is  that  baby?  It 
isn't  white.  It  isn't  Japanese.  I'll  tell  you 
what  it  is — 

"It  is  the  beginning  of  the  biggest  problem 
that  ever  faced  the  American  people!" 

Mr.  Rowell,  who  was  present,  reports  that 
the  Assembly  committee  withdrew,  without 

i  Woodberry,  G.  E.,  "The  Torch ;  Eight  Lectures  on  Race 
Power":  New  York,  1905;  pp.  3,  6. 


ARE  JAPANESE  ASSIMILABLE?       69 

waiting  for  the  hearing  to  end,  and  "unani 
mously  reported  out  one  of  the  very  bills 
against  which  we  were  protesting"  2 — a  bill, 
needless  to  say,  inimical  to  Japanese  inter 
ests  in  California. 

Doubtless  the  Assembly  committee  was 
precipitate;  conceivably,  Professor  Wood- 
berry  was  poetically  depicting  some  "far-off 
divine  event  to  which  the  whole  creation 
moves";  but,  just  as  farmers  and  politicians 
ought  to  read  more  philosophy  and  poetry, 
so  the  Atlantic  Coast  critics  of  the  Pacific 
Coast,  and  our  Japanese  critics  as  well, 
ought  to  try  to  catch  their  neighbor's  point 
of  view.  Perhaps  Farmer  Newman  was 
mistaken  and  excited,  but  there  can  be  no 
sort  of  doubt  that  he  was  sincere;  nor  can 
there  be  any  doubt  whatever  that  if  con 
ditions  were  reversed,  so  that  the  Japanese 
became  excited  with  the  notion  that  the  pearl 
of  Yamato-damashii  was  about  to  be  dis 
solved  in  the  sacrificial  cup  of  history,  and 
their  race  lost  in  the  white  man's  melting 

?Rowell,  C.  H.,  in  The  World's  Work,  as  cited,  p.  195. 


70  THE  JAPANESE  CRISIS 

pot,  they  would  speak  in  terms  of  prose 
rather  than  poetry,  and  enact  an  alien  land 
law.  Have  they  not  already  done  so  ?  Per 
haps  the  most  vigorous  alien  law  ever  en 
acted  was  that  by  which  Japan  in  1624  ban 
ished  all  Europeans  utterly  from  the  Em 
pire,  except  a  handful  of  Dutch  traders  in 
sulated  at  Deshima,  to  whom  only  two  ships 
were  permitted  to  enter  from  Holland  in  a 
year,  and  from  whom  Japan  exacted  costly 
tribute;  all  because  they  believed  their  gov 
ernment  to  be  threatened  by  intrigues  of  the 
Roman  Catholics.  This  is  the  law  which, 
rigorously  enforced,  endured  for  268  years, 
or  until  Perry  forcibly  annulled  it  in  1853 
for  the  sake  of  California  commerce. 

It  would  not  be  fair  to  cite  the  persecu 
tions  inflicted  during  this  period  on  natives 
who  had  merely  ventured  to  embrace  an 
alien  religion — persecutions  which,  accord 
ing  to  Japanese  records  themselves,  equaled 
in  ferocious  intensity  those  of  the  Roman 
Empire  or  the  Spanish  Inquisition.3  Mod- 

s  Gubbins,  J.  H.,  "Asiatic  Society  Transactions,"  vol.  vi, 


ARE  JAPANESE  ASSIMILABLE?       71 

ern  Japan  is  totally  different  from  medieval 
Japan.  But  the  racial  and  nationalistic 
passion  exists  now  just  as  it  did  then,  and  no 
one  with  the  slightest  actual  knowledge  of 
the  Japanese  can  doubt  that  if  intrigue 
against  their  government  in  the  seventeenth 
century  produced  the  alien  laws  of  lyeyasu 
and  lyemitsu,  a  sincere  (albeit  perhaps  mis 
taken)  conviction  that  their  race  itself  was  in 
danger  of  dissolution,  and  their  best  land 
of  absorption,  and  their  economic  opportuni 
ties  of  annihilation,  by  white  settlers,  some 
thing  would  happen  in  the  twentieth  century 
equally  as  drastic  as  the  passage  of  the  Cali 
fornia  Land  Law,  to  say  the  least. 

This  is  not  to  say  that  the  California  Land 
Law  is  right.  It  is  merely  to  point  the 
homely  English  proverbs,  that  pots  should 
not  call  kettles  black,  and  that  we  should  al 
ways  try  to  put  ourselves  in  the  other  fel 
lows'  shoes. 

Some  of  the  most  intelligent  opponents  of 

part  i,  p.  35.  See  also  citations  in  Murray's  "Japan": 
New  York,  1901;  pp.  246-249. 


72  THE  JAPANESE  CRISIS 

oriental  immigration  base  their  opposition 
frankly  on  race  difference,  and  assume  the 
non-assimilability  of  the  Japanese.  Walter 
Macarthur  opens  his  argument  with  the 
statement:  "The  opposition  to  oriental  im 
migration  is  justified  upon  the  single  ground 
of  race";  and  closes  with  the  startling  asser 
tion:  "The  conclusion  of  the  whole  matter 
then  is  that  exclusion  is  the  only  alternative 
of  race  degeneracy  or  race  war."  4  Chester 
H.  Rowell  says:  "We  know  what  could 
happen,  on  the  Asiatic  side,  by  what  did  hap 
pen  and  is  happening  on  the  European  side. 
On  that  side  we  have  survived,  and  such  of 
the  immigration  as  we  have  not  assimilated 
for  the  present  we  know  is  assimilable  in  the 
future.  But  against  Asiatic  immigration 
we  could  not  survive.  The  numbers  who 
would  come  would  be  greater  than  we  could 
encyst,  and  the  races  who  would  come  are 
those  which  we  could  never  absorb.  The 
permanence  not  merely  of  American  civiliza- 

*  Macarthur,  W.,  "Opposition  to  Oriental  Immigration," 
in  "Annals,"  as  cited,  pp.  239,  246. 


ARE  JAPANESE  ASSIMILABLE?       73 

tion,  but  of  the  white  race  on  this  continent, 
depends  on  our  not  doing,  on  the  Pacific  side, 
what  we  have  done  on  the  Atlantic  Coast." 5 — 
"The  bitterest  anti- Japanese  agitation  in 
California  has  never  once  suggested  that 
they  are  an  inferior  race.  They  are  of  a 
different,  and  physically  unassimilable  race ; 
that  is  all.  .  .  .  Whether  ten  thousand  acres 
of  Japanese  farms  shall  become  twenty  thou 
sand  is  not  overwhelmingly  important. 
That  the  two  chief  races  of  mankind  shall 
stay  each  on  its  own  side  of  the  Pacific,  there 
to  conduct  in  peace  and  friendship  the  com 
merce  of  goods  and  ideas,  and  of  the  things 
of  the  spirit,  but  without  general  interpene- 
tration  of  populations,  or  commingling  of 
blood — that  is  precisely  the  greatest  thing  in 
the  world."  6 

Senator  Newlands  of  Nevada  may  also  be 
cited.  He  says: 

"History  teaches  that  it  is  impossible  to 
make  a  homogeneous  people  by  the  juxtapo- 

5  "Annals,"  as  cited,  p.  230. 

e  World's  Work,  as  cited,  pp.  199,  201. 


74  THE  JAPANESE  CRISIS 

sition  upon  the  same  soil  of  races  differing 
in  color.  .  .  .  Our  friendship  with  Japan, 
for  whose  territorial  and  race  integrity  the 
American  people  have  been  in  active  sympa 
thy  in  all  her  struggles,  demands  that  this 
friendship  be  not  put  to  the  test  by  bringing 
two  such  powerful  races,  of  such  differing 
views  and  standards,  into  industrial  compe 
tition  upon  the  same  soil.  .  .  .  Japan  can 
not  justly  take  offense  at  such  restrictive 
domestic  legislation  upon  our  part.  She 
would  be  the  first  to  take  such  action  against 
the  white  race,  were  it  necessary  to  do  so  in 
order  to  maintain  the  integrity  of  her  race 
and  her  institutions.  She  is  at  liberty  to 
pursue  a  similar  course.  Such  action  con 
stitutes  no  implication  of  inferiority  of  the 
race  excluded;  it  may  even  be  a  confession  of 
inferiority  by  the  excluding  race,  in  its  abil 
ity  to  cope  economically  with  the  race  ex 
cluded.  ...  I  am  opposed  to  terms  of  op 
probrium  and  of  insult.  Japan  deserves 
from  us  only  respect  and  admiration,  and  we 


ARE  JAPANESE  ASSIMILABLE?       75 

deserve  from  her  a  proper  regard  for  the  in 
tegrity  of  our  race  and  institutions."  7 

These  writers  all  assume  as  indisputable 
that  the  Japanese  are  not  assimilable  and 
that  amalgamation  would  result  in  degen 
eracy.  In  this  they  have  the  high  authority 
of  Herbert  Spencer,  whose  opinion  is  all 
the  more  impressive  because  he  approaches 
the  subject  from  the  standpoint  of  the  pres 
ervation  and  protection  of  the  Japanese 
people  themselves.  Under  date  of  August 
26,  1892,  he  wrote  to  Baron  Kaneko: 

"To  your  question  respecting  the  inter 
marriage  of  foreigners  and  Japanese,  which 
you  say  is  'now  very  much  agitated  among 
our  scholars  and  politicians'  and  which  you 
say  is  'one  of  the  most  difficult  problems,' 
my  reply  is  that,  as  rationally  answered, 
there  is  no  difficulty  at  all.  It  should  be 
positively  forbidden.  It  is  not  at  root  a 
question  of  social  philosophy.  It  is  at  root 
a  question  of  biology.  There  is  abundant 

7  Newlands,  F.  G.,  "A  Western  View  of  the  Race  Ques 
tion,"  in  "Annals,"  as  cited,  pp.  270-271. 


76  THE  JAPANESE  CRISIS 

proof,  alike  furnished  by  the  intermarriages 
of  human  races  and  by  the  interbreeding  of 
animals,  that  when  the  varieties  mingled  di 
verge  beyond  a  certain  slight  degree  the  re 
sult  is  inevitably  a  bad  one  in  the  long  run. 
I  have  myself  been  in  the  habit  of  looking 
at  the  evidence  bearing  on  this  matter  for 
many  years  past,  and  my  conviction  is  based 
on  numerous  facts  derived  from  numer 
ous  sources.  .  .  .  By  all  means,  therefore, 
peremptorily  interdict  marriages  of  Japa 
nese  with  foreigners. 

"I  have  for  the  reasons  indicated  entirely 
approved  of  the  regulations  which  have  been 
established  in  America  for  restraining  the 
Chinese  immigration,  and  had  I  the  power 
I  would  restrict  them  to  the  smallest  possible 
amount.  ...  If  they  mix  they  must  form  a 
bad  hybrid.  .  .  .  The  same  thing  will  hap 
pen  if  there  should  be  any  considerable  mix 
ture  of  European  or  American  races  with 
the  Japanese. 

"You  see,  therefore,  that  my  advice  is 
strongly  conservative  in  all  directions,  and  I 


ARE  JAPANESE  ASSIMILABLE?       77 

end  by  saying  as  I  began — keep  other  races 
at  arm's  length  as  much  as  possible" 8 

The  study  of  biology  and  sociology  has 
proceeded  far  since  Spencer's  day,  with  the 
result  that  many  scholars  now  attach  great 
importance  to  social  heredity  in  contrast  with 
biological.  They  conceive  of  the  physical 
organism,  indeed,  as  being  chiefly  determined 
by  biological  heredity,  although  even  here 
such  investigations  as  those  of  Boas  and 
Fishberg9  show  the  most  startling  physio 
logical  changes  due  to  a  new  environment; 
whereas,  on  the  other  hand,  the  age-long 
social  traditions  of  a  people  form  an  intangi 
ble  but  exceedingly  influential  spiritual  en 
vironment  which  may  completely  transform, 
in  immigrants  themselves  but  more  especially 
in  their  children,  the  attitude  of  the  indi 
vidual  toward  morality,  patriotism,  and,  in 
fact,  the  whole  body  of  social  behavior. 

s  London  Times,  Jan.  18,  1904.  Printed  as  Appendix  in 
Hearn's  "Japan;  an  Attempt  at  Interpretation":  New  York 
and  London,  1904. 

9  Boas,  F.,  "Changes  in  Bodily  Form  of  Descendants  of 
Immigrants":  Washington,  1912.  Fishberg,  M.,  "The  Jews; 
A  Study  of  Race  and  Environment":  New  York,  1911. 


78  THE  JAPANESE  CRISIS 

Dr.  Gulick  has  carefully  studied  this 
subject,  both  in  his  "Evolution  of  the  Jap 
anese"  10  and  in  his  other  volume  to  which 
this  paper  has  made  frequent  reference, 
with  the  ensuing  conviction  that  "com 
plete  assimilation  to  our  civilization  can 
take  place  without  intermarriage."  1X  He 
believes  that  patriotism  is  a  psychic  trait, 
communicated  or  inherited  wholly  by  social 
means,  and  thinks  that  those  who  deny 
the  assimilability  of  the  Japanese  have 
based  their  belief  on  a  theory  of  race  nature 
which  is  no  longer  tenable.  In  a  word, 
they  are  obsessed  by  the  biological  con 
ception  of  man's  nature  and  life.  They  do 
not  recognize  the  psychic  or  spiritual  factor, 
nor  do  they  perceive  that  this  psychic  factor 
modifies  in  important  ways  even  man's  phys 
ical  life.  They  think  of  heredity  only  in 
terms  of  biological  analogy  and  have  not  a 
glimpse  of  social  heredity  with  laws  wholly 

10  New  York  and  London,  1903. 

*   v        11  Gulick,  S.  L.,  "The  American  Japanese  Problem":  New 
York,  1914-;  p.  147. 


ARE  JAPANESE  ASSIMILABLE?       79 

its  own.12  He  approves  the  remark  of  Pro 
fessor  Commons :  "It  is  not  physical  amal 
gamation  that  unites  mankind;  it  is  mental 
community.  To  be  great  a  nation  need  not 
be  of  one  blood,  it  must  be  of  one  mind"  13— 
and  cites  numerous  instances  of  Japanese 
living  in  America  and  of  their  American 
born  children  to  prove  that  the  Japanese  can 
and  do  make  good  American  citizens  in  the 
fullest  sense  of  the  phrase. 

Certainly  every  thoughtful  man  of  ad 
vanced  or  middle  age  must  have  had  borne 
in  upon  him,  by  some  means  or  other,  the 
fact  of  the  plasticity  of  peoples  under  a 
changed  intellectual  molding.  The  Amer 
icans  themselves,  through  education  and  the 
facilities  of  intercourse  with  older  and  more 
highly  cultivated  civilizations,  are  socially  of 
a  distinct  order  from  the  Americans  of  the 
'seventies;  any  one  that  doubts  this  need 
only  refresh  his  recollection  by  reading,  for 

12  The  same,  pp.  164,  165. 

is  Commons,  J.  R.,  "Races  and  Immigrants  in  America": 
New  York,  1913;  p.  20. 


80  THE  JAPANESE  CRISIS 

example,  such  a  faithful  narrative  as  Mark 
Twain's  and  Charles  Dudley  Warner's 
"Gilded  Age."  Who  among  us  has  not  had 
to  change  utterly,  during  the  last  year  or 
two,  his  notion  of  the  Germans? — the  reason 
being  that  the  supposedly  "phlegmatic" 
Germans  themselves  have  suffered  a  com 
plete  transformation  under  the  spell  of  their 
modern  schoolmasters,  whereas  we  had  been 
thinking  of  them  in  the  terms  of  Goethe  and 
Schiller. 

As  for  the  Japanese,  the  present  writer 
said  of  them  ten  years  ago  that  "for  quick 
receptiveness  and  rapid,  thorough  assimila 
tion  of  mental  food  they  are  unparalleled"; 
that  "the  mental  soil  of  the  Japanese  has 
had  a  rapid  receptivity  without  parallel  in 
the  history  of  the  world" — but  he  realizes 
now  that  he  did  not  allow  sufficiently  for 
immediate  results  from  this  remarkable 
endowment;  so  that,  in  revising  the  books 
written  then,  he  intends  to  give  credit  for  an 
appropriation  of  occidental  modes  of  be 
havior  of  which  he  did  not  then  think  that 


ARE  JAPANESE  ASSIMILABLE?       81 

even  the  Japanese  could  be  so  rapidly  ca 
pable. 

Take,  for  example,  the  matter  of  com 
mercial  honesty.  In  medieval  Japan  there 
were  four  great  social  classes:  samurai  or 
warrior,  farmer,  artisan,  and  merchant, 
ranking  in  the  order  named.  Next  below 
the  guardian  warrior  class  came  the 
farmers,  always  held  in  a  certain  respect 
because  they  added  to  the  common  wealth, 
which  the  warriors  defended,  by  crea 
tion  of  the  products  of  the  soil.  Artisans 
ranked  next,  and  these  were  often  artists; 
farmers  and  artisans,  being  creators,  were 
worthy  of  all  reverence.  But  the  mer 
chant  or  banker  lives  by  merely  exchang 
ing  the  products  of  others;  so  that,  by  a 
social  philosophy  opposed  to  our  own,  all 
who  merely  dealt  with  money  were  ranked  at 
the  bottom  of  the  scale  as  non-producers. 
By  the  operation  of  a  human  psychology 
that  is  the  same  the  world  over,  this  unre- 
spected  mercantile  class  responded  to  its 
treatment,  and  became  unrespectable — that 


82  THE  JAPANESE  CRISIS 

is  to  say,  dishonest,  so  that  the  untrustworth- 
iness  of  Japanese  in  commercial  transactions 
became  a  long  standing  byword.  Ten  years 
ago  the  writer  characterized  "deep-set  dis 
honesty"  as  a  "cancer  at  the  core  of  the  Jap 
anese  character."  He  also  thought,  with 
other  foreign  students,  that  Japan  had  had 
"a  Renaissance,  but  not  a  Reformation"; 
that  there  could  not,  in  the  very  nature  of  the 
case,  have  been  an  inner  transformation  com 
mensurate  with  the  outward;  and  that  this 
inner  transformation  would  be  a  long  time 
coming.  But  what  has  happened?  Com 
mercial  dishonesty  is  rapidly  giving  way  to 
trustworthiness.  The  mercantile  class,  be 
ing  lifted,  through  the  adoption  of  occidental 
ideas,  to  a  higher  social  plane,  responds  to  the 
new  environment.  More  is  expected  of  them, 
and  they  render  more  in  return.  The  Jap 
anese  business  man  has  come  into  a  new  so 
cial  heredity,  of  which  he  is  rapidly  becoming 
a  worthy  heir.  A  California  fruit  shipper 
gives  the  remarkable  testimony:  "Ten 
years  ago,  forty  of  each  fifty  tenants  were 


ARE  JAPANESE  ASSIMILABLE?       83 

dishonest,  but  now  the  forty  are  honest  and 
entirely  trustworthy." 14  While  this  for 
mula  would  overstate  the  case  if  universally 
applied,  it  is  nevertheless  an  index  of  the 
general  testimony  that  the  Japanese  attitude 
towards  business  affairs  is  improving  with 
astonishing  rapidity.  Commerce  is  no 
longer  despised.  Successful  merchants.take 
high  rank  in  society.  Commercial  morality 
is  being  rapidly  developed.  The  moral  ob 
ligation  adhering  to  contracts  and  promises 
is  beginning  to  be  widely  recognized  and  em 
phasized.  The  entire  Japanese  people  have 
entered  on  a  new  development  of  moral  life 
because  of  their  new  social,  industrial,  and 
commercial  activities  and  organization.15 

On  the  basis  of  his  personal  knowledge  of 
the  Japanese  at  home,  his  experience  of  their 
behavior  under  proper  conditions  in  Cali 
fornia,  and  his  observation  of  the  transform 
ing  influences  of  American  environment  on 
immigrants  and  the  children  of  immigrants, 

14  Millis,  as  cited,  p.  149. 

15  Gulick,  as  cited,  p.  45. 


84,  THE  JAPANESE  CRISIS 

the  present  writer  cannot  doubt  the  capacity 
of  the  Japanese  to  become  good  citizens.  In 
other  words,  he  believes  in  their  psychic  as- 
similability ;  but  this  is  a  very  different  mat 
ter  from  amalgamation. 

It  seems  a  great  pity  that  former  Presi 
dent  Eliot  (of  Harvard)  is  incorrect  in  his 
belief  that  wherever  the  Japanese  have  lived 
in  foreign  lands  they  keep  their  race  pure. 
He  says:  "They  do  not  intermarry  with 
women  of  any  foreign  race,  affording  thus  a 
strong  contrast  to  the  white  race  when  in 
foreign  parts.  The  inexpedient  crossing  of 
unlike  races  will  not  be  promoted  by  them  in 
any  part  of  the  world.  .  .  .  The  immigra 
tion  question  need  not  be  complicated  with 
any  racial  problem,  provided  each  of  the  sev 
eral  races  abiding  in  the  same  territory  keeps 
itself  pure,  as  the  Japanese  do  wherever  they 
live."  1G 

It  is  difficult  to  see  how  Dr.  Eliot  could 
make  such  a  mistake.  Not  only  is  his  judg- 

16  Eliot,  C.  W.,  "Some  Roads  towards  Peace";  Report 
to  the  Carnegie  Endowment  for  International  Peace:  Wash 
ington,  1914;  pp.  58,  9  (see  also  p.  42). 


ARE  JAPANESE  ASSIMILABLE?       85 

ment  flatly  contradicted  by  the  facts  in  Cal 
ifornia,  but  the  letter  of  Herbert  Spencer's, 
already  quoted,  intimates  that  the  question 
of  intermarriage  with  foreigners  was  at  one 
time  being  much  agitated  in  Japan  itself, 
among  scholars  and  politicians,  as  a  matter 
of  national  policy.17  Moreover,  the  ethnol 
ogy  of  the  Japanese  effectually  disproves 
such  a  contention.  Of  Mongolian  stock, 
not  only  Tartar  and  Malay  elements  have 
been  superadded,  but  Caucasian, — through 
the  Ainu, — and  probably  Negroid.  They 
are  more  of  a  mixture  than  we  are.  Indeed, 
Dr.  Gulick  seems  to  imply  that  an  argument 
for  amalgamation  might  be  based  on  their 
large  infusion  of  "white  blood";  adding  that 
there  is  a  tendency  to  striking  beauty  in 
Americo- Japanese,  and  that  the  mental  abil 
ity  of  the  offspring  of  these  mixed  marriages 
is  not  inferior  to  that  of  children  of  either 
race.  Nevertheless,  he  regards  mixed  mar 
riages  as  highly  undesirable.18 

17  See  page  75. 

is  Gulick,  as  cited,  pp.  153,  157. 


86  THE  JAPANESE  CRISIS 

The  present  writer  believes  that  while  the 
Japanese  may  be  spiritually  assimilated  to 
our  manners  of  thought  and  action,  so  as  to 
make  good  citizens,  the  question  of  biolog 
ical  assimilation,  involving  intermarriage, 
must  wait  on  a  much  larger  body  of  scientific 
facts  than  are  at  present  available;  and  that 
meanwhile  the  intense  feeling  19  engendered 
in  those  American  communities  where  Jap 
anese  are  strongly  concentrated  and  are 
prone  to  intermarriage  should  be  allayed  by 
the  enactment  of  laws  by  both  governments 
against  amalgamation.  It  is  not  a  question 
of  relative  superiority,  but  of  prudential 
policy. 

19  See  pages  33-34. 


IS  AGRICULTURAL  COMPETITION 
SAFE? 


IS  AGRICULTURAL  COMPETITION 
SAFE? 

THE  other  day  the  writer  received  the  fol 
lowing  note  from  one  of  the  broadest- 
minded,  most  thoughtful,  and  most  philan 
thropic  citizens  of  California;  a  man  about 
as  free  from  race  prejudice,  he  believes,  as 
one  ever  gets  to  be  in  this  world — and  this 
brief  note,  in  the  present  writer's  judgment, 
expresses  the  real  crux  of  the  Japanese 
danger  in  California : 

"To-day,  Sunday,  I  passed  a  truck  farm 
on  the  Foothill  Boulevard  and  saw  three 
Japanese  and  their  wives  hoeing  a  large 
tract  industriously.  How  can  a  white 
farmer  compete  with  them  and  at  the  same 
time  inform  himself  sufficiently  to  make  a 
good  and  efficient  citizen,  and  how  could  his 
wife  rear  good  citizens?" 

This  pungent  question  is  so  conclusively 
unanswerable  that  all  who  thoughtfully  dis 
cuss  it,  Japanese  or  American,  agree  upon 

89 


90  THE  JAPANESE  CRISIS 

one  point :  that  oriental  immigration  must  be 
restricted.  Some,  such  as  the  members  of 
the  Asiatic  Exclusion  League,  would  carry 
restriction  to  the  point  of  actual  exclu 
sion;  but  all  serious  students  agree  that 
measures  of  restriction  are  absolutely  nec 
essary,  although  differing  as  to  degree  and 
method.  Mr.  Rowell  says,  with  graphic 
force:  "The  great  danger  of  the  'yel 
low  peril'  is  its  enormous  size.  With  less 
than  two  million  white  men  in  California, 
and  more  than  four  hundred  million  Chinese 
in  China,  just  across  the  way,  the  very  small 
est  overflow  from  that  limitless  reservoir 
would  swamp  our  Pacific  Coast."  *  Pro 
fessor  Millis,  strongly  pro- Japanese,  hits  the 
economic  core  of  the  question  when  he  con 
cedes:  "Immigration  involves  a  conflict  of 
standards/'  It  is  inevitable  that  he  should 
then  add:  "A  narrow  restriction  of  im 
migration  of  Asiatics  is  necessary  if  stand 
ards  are  not  to  be  lowered  on  the  Pacific 
Coast,  where  most  would  enter  the  country 

i  "Annals,"  as  cited,  p.  229. 


AGRICULTURAL  COMPETITION       91 

and  where  most  of  those  who  enter  would 
remain."  2  Dr.  Gulick,  still  more  strongly 
pro- Japanese,  "heartily  agrees  with  the 
fundamental  postulate  of  California's  gen 
eral  oriental  policy.  An  immigration  from 
Asia  swamping  the  white  man,  overturning 
the  democratic  institutions  of  the  Pacific 
Coast,  and  bringing  wide  economic  disaster 
to  Caucasian  laborers  and  farmers  is  not  for 
a  moment  to  be  tolerated.  .  .  .  All  are 
agreed  in  regard  to  this  point.  I  have 
talked  with  many  Japanese  gentlemen  on 
this  matter  and  not  one  have  I  found  who 
dissents." 3  Mr.  K.  K.  Kawakami,  the 
spokesman  of  his  people  on  the  Pacific 
Coast,  has  said:  "I  do  not,  of  course,  be 
lieve  in  unrestricted  Japanese  immigration. 
On  the  contrary,  I  think  that  the  contact  of 

2  Millis,  as  cited,  pp.  286,  287. 

3  Gulick,  as  cited,  p.   184.     Dr.   Gulick's  interesting  pro 
posal  of  a  general  immigration  law  admitting,  say,  5  per 
cent  yearly   of  the   aliens   of   any   one   nationality   already 
here,  is  not  so  innocuous  as  it  looks.     It  really  means  that 
5,000  Japanese  and   more  would   annually   localize  in   Cal 
ifornia,    since    experience    shows    that    very    few    Japanese 
immigrants    care    to    go    elsewhere.     See    page    33. 


92  THE  JAPANESE  CRISIS 

two  different  races  must  be  slow  and  grad 
ual."  4 

When  all  parties  to  a  controversy,  differ 
ing  as  to  almost  everything  else,  agree  on 
one  important  particular,  great  progress  has 
been  made  towards  a  general  settlement. 
For  such  agreement  means  that  everything 
except  the  most  important  objective  has 
been  at  length  cleared  away,  and  that  we 
may  discover,  on  close  inspection,  the  very 
heart  of  our  problem.  Thereafter  it  is  a 
question  of  methods,  not  of  fundamental 
principle;  and  considerateness,  if  mutually 
exercised,  should  finally  settle  the  contro 
versy.  In  this  case,  what  we  uncover  is 
labor  on  the  land.  California  immigration 
is  not  of  the  commercial  or  manufacturing 
type,  it  is  almost  entirely  agricultural.5 
However  we  may  debate  other  questions,  a 
unanimous  negative  answer  must  be  re 
turned  to  the  query:  Is  unrestricted  agri 
cultural  competition  between  these  two  races 

*  Letter  dated  February  18,  1915. 
s  See  page  34. 


AGRICULTURAL  COMPETITION       93 

safe?  This  answered,  California  advances 
a  method  for  the  avoidance  of  such  compe 
tition;  and  that  method  is  the  Alien  Land 
Law  of  1913. 


THE  ALIEN  LAND  LAW 


THE  ALIEN  LAND  LAW 1 

WE  left  our  discussion  of  the  California 
opposition  to  Japanese  immigration  with  the 
"Gentlemen's  Agreement"  of  1907.2  Since 
that  time  feeling  has  gradually  focused  on 
the  land,  owing  to  causes  already  ex 
plained;3  but  this  feeling  was  not,  until 
1913,  so  widespread  as  to  engender  a  state 
wide  political  issue  of  any  great  importance, 
although  the  minority  party,  the  Democrats, 
deemed  the  demand  for  a  law  to  be  suf 
ficiently  sharp  to  be  used  as  a  frequent  goad 
to  embarrass  the  party  in  power.  But 
whenever  this  supposititious  demand  shaped 
itself  into  bills  these  were  invariably  pulled 
to  pieces  by  a  struggle  as  to  whether  they 
should  discriminate  against  certain  aliens 
only,  01  treat  all  aliens  alike ;  the  big  business 

1  For  a  succinct,  fair,  and  interesting  account  of  the  legis 
lative  evolution  of  this  law,  see  Franklin  Hichborn's  "Story 
of  the  California  Legislature":  San  Francisco,  1909  (p.  202 
if.),  1911    (p.  342  if.),  1913   (pp.  213-274). 

2  See  page  28. 

3  See  pages  33-34,  for  example. 

97 


98  THE  JAPANESE  CRISIS 

interests  invariably  protesting  against  meas 
ures  which,  by  being  all-inclusive,  might 
tend  to  discourage  European  investments  in 
California,  while  Washington,  with  equal  in 
sistence,  opposed  discrimination.  In  1909, 
for  example,  an  alien  land  law  designed  to 
affect  only  the  Japanese  was,  through  the 
President's  influence,  amended  to  include  all 
aliens, — whereupon  "the  interests"  promptly 
defeated  it. 

An  index  of  the  growing  feeling  over  the 
land  question  was  afforded  by  the  action  of 
Senator  Caminetti — now  United  States 
Commissioner  of  Immigration — when  a  re 
port  favorable  to  Japanese  agricultural  la 
bor  was  finished  and  presented  to  the  legis 
lature  of  1909,  which  had  appropriated 
$10,000  for  the  preparation  of  this  report. 
Although  floor  leader  of  a  small  Democratic 
minority,  Caminetti,  a  masterful  figure,  was 
able  to  secure  unanimous  passage  of  the  fol 
lowing  resolution: 

"Whereas,  the  State  Labor  Commissioner 
has,  in  his  report  concerning  Japanese  labor- 


ALIEN  LAND  LAW  99 

ers,  expressed  his  opinion  of  the  necessity  for 
such  laborers  in  this  State,  and  thus  without 
authority  misrepresented  the  wishes  of  the 
people  of  this  commonwealth,  therefore  be  it 
Resolved,  that  the  opinion  of  such  Labor 
Commissioner  is  hereby  disapproved  by  this 
Senate." 4 

This  resolution,  be  it  observed,  does  not 
question  the  findings  of  the  report,  but  con 
demns  the  opinion  of  the  Commissioner, 
which,  being  based  solely  on  the  economic 
efficiency  of  the  Japanese  as  farm  laborers, 
did  not  take  into  account  the  paramount 
issue  of  ultimate  agricultural  competition 
between  the  two  races. 

In  the  legislature  of  1911  a  comprehen 
sive  alien  land  bill,  forbidding  leasing  as  well 
as  purchase  was  killed  in  one  chamber  after 
passing  the  other;  long-distance  pressure 
from  Washington  being  aided  in  this  case  by 
handy  assistance  from  the  directors  of  the 

4  California  Senate  Journal,  1910,  p.  39.  A  summary 
of  the  State  Labor  Commissioner's  Report  (already  cited 
in  this  volume,  on  page  34)  is  printed  as  Appendix  B  by 
Gulick,  as  cited. 


100  THE  JAPANESE  CRISIS 

proposed   San   Francisco   Exposition,   who 
desired  the  participation  of  Japan. 

The  writer,  who  was  present  at  the  critical 
session  of  1913,  and  who  naturally  followed 
with  great  interest  the  course  of  the  various 
alien  land  bills  then  introduced,  confidently 
believes  that  the  Exposition  directorate  and 
other  strong  influences  would  have  pre 
vented  the  passage  of  any  of  these  measures, 
except  for  extraordinary  political  complica 
tions  between  the  state  and  the  nation.  He 
believes  now  what  he  wrote  to  the  New  York 
Independent  when  the  discussion  had 
reached  fever  heat,  and  before  the  alien  law 
had  been  enacted,  that  here  is  the  crux  of  the 
matter, — a  legislature  embarrassed  between 
the  horns  of  a  dilemma:  "square  deal"  peo 
ple  uniting  with  the  Federal  Government 
and  the  Japanese  themselves  in  demanding 
a  non-discriminatory  measure  or  none  at  all, 
while,  on  the  other  hand,  any  impartial  en 
actment,  directed  against  all  aliens  alike,  im 
mediately  incurs  the  hostility  of  California 
banks  in  behalf  of  large  British  and  other 


ALIEN  VLAttft  >,AW 

European  investments.  Between  two  such 
horns  a  legislature  must  almost  certainly 
fall.  It  is  clear  to  my  judgment  that  if  Mr. 
Bryan  had  not  come  to  California  the  legisla 
ture  in  the  final  issue  would  have  passed 
either  an  impartial  measure  or  none  at  all, — 
and  more  likely  the  latter.5 

Against  discriminatory  action,  a  wide 
spread  feeling  had  developed  such  strength 
throughout  California  that  although  fair- 
minded  citizens  lacked  efficient  organization 
like  that  of  the  Exclusion  League,  and,  in 
fact,  any  organization  at  all,  protests  poured 
in,  not  only  from  the  powerful  directorate  of 
the  Exposition,  but  also  from  civic  bodies  in 
different  parts  of  the  state,  while  among  in 
fluential  newspapers  opposing  jt  were  the 
Fresno  Republican  (Mr.  RowelFs  paper) ; 
the  Pasadena  News;  the  Los  Angeles  Times, 
the  Tribune,  the  Express,  and  the  Graphic; 
the  San  Francisco  Post,  and  even  the  San 
Francisco  Chronicle.  Against  non-discrim- 

5  Scherer,  J.  A.  B.,  Law  Making  in  California,  in  The  In 
dependent:  New  York,  May  15,  1913;  p.  1091. 


THE  JAPANESE  CRISIS 

inatory  legislation  affecting  all  aliens  alike, 
and  not  merely  Asiatics,  protests  were 
lodged,  on  the  other  hand,  by  banks  and 
boards  of  trade  and  chambers  of  commerce 
unduly  sensitive  to  the  European  financial 
barometer, — so  that,  embarrassed  by  such 
cross-firing,  the  legislative  majority  appar 
ently  felt  that  they  had  a  political  bug 
bear  on  their  hands  in  the  guise  of  the 
Exclusion  League's  alien  land  bills,  of 
whatsoever  character,  and  would  no  doubt 
have  been  happy,  as  in  the  case  of  so  many 
other  measures  of  that  session,  to  move  "that 
this  bill  do  sleep."  Only  the  small  Demo 
cratic  minority,  cheered,  no  doubt,  by  the  un 
wonted  complexion  of  the  new  national  ad 
ministration,  and  re-enforced  by  a  few  rural 
legislators  representing  the  real  problem  at 
first  hand, — these  few,  spurred  also  by  the 
size  of  the  labor  vote,  kept  the  Japanese  ag 
itation  in  motion. 

Then  a  strange  thing  happened.  An  ut 
terance  of  Governor  Johnson's,  as  the  writer 
believes,  was  misinterpreted  in  Washington 


ALIEN  LAND  LAW  103 

to  express  a  determination  to  push  through 
an  anti-Japanese  bill  at  all  hazards.  Wash 
ington,  with  the  best  of  intentions,  began 
to  interpose, — finally  by  the  picturesque 
method  of  sending  out  Secretary  Bryan,  for 
the  performance  of  that  brand  of  persuasion 
for  which  he  is  famed.  The  California 
Democrats,  although  now  entangled  in  an 
amusing  predicament  through  seeing  one  of 
their  pet  measures  attacked  by  the  first  na 
tional  administration  they  had  enjoyed  for 
many  years,  derived  compensatory  satisfac 
tion  from  the  supposed  embarrassment  of  the 
"Progressive"  Governor — who,  it  may  be 
remembered,  had  been  a  candidate  for  vice- 
president  against  Marshall.  Mr.  Bryan  ar 
rived,  and  the  Governor,  driving  with  him 
out  to  the  Japanese  community  at  Florin, 
became  genuinely  interested  in  the  Japanese 
land  question.  The  whole  matter,  moreover, 
was  by  this  time  so  well  advertised  that  it  be 
came  a  state-wide  political  issue  of  absorbing 
popular  interest.  Two  of  the  Governor's 
friends,  Mr.  Francis  J.  Heney  and  Attor- 


104  THE  JAPANESE  CRISIS 

ney- General  Webb,  proceeded  to  the  aid  of 
the  legislature  in  preparing  a  far  more 
ingenious  measure  than  any  of  its  still-born 
forerunners;  that  famous  measure  which, 
shortly  before  Mr.  Bryan's  return  to  Wash 
ington,  passed  the  Senate  by  a  vote  of  35  to 
2,  and  the  Assembly  by  72  to  3 — the  Demo 
crats,  sad  to  relate,  all  voting  for  it,  in  spite 
of  Mr.  Bryan's  oratory,  and  thus  fostering 
their  pet  state  measure  after  all. 

So  it  is  that  one  of  the  most  serious  inter 
national  problems  confronting  the  govern 
ment  of  the  United  States  to-day  owes  its 
existence,  in  large  measure,  to  Sacramento 
misunderstandings,  and  to  the  farcical — if 
not  tragical — complexities  of  our  state  and 
national  politics. 

The  gist  of  the  Alien  Land  Law6  is  as 
follows: 

"Section  1.  All  aliens  eligible  to  citizen 
ship  under  the  laws  of  the  United  States  may 
acquire,  possess,  enjoy,  transmit  tod  inherit 

real  property,  or  any  interest  therein,  in  this 

» 

e  Approved  .Majr  19,  1913. 


ALIEN  LAND  LAW  105 

State,  in  the  same  manner  and  to  the  same 
extent  as  citizens  of  the  United  States,  ex 
cept  as  otherwise  provided  by  the  laws  of  this 
State. 

"Section  2.  All  aliens  other  than  those 
mentioned  in  Section  one  of  this  act  may  ac 
quire,  possess,  enjoy  and  transfer  real  prop 
erty,  or  any  interest  therein,  in  this  State,  in 
the  manner  and  to  the  extent  and  for  the 
purposes  prescribed  by  any  treaty  now  exist 
ing  between  the  government  of  the  United 
States  and  the  nation  or  country  of  which 
such  alien  is  a  citizen  or  subject  and  not  oth 
erwise,  and  may  in  addition  thereto  lease 
lands  in  this  State  for  agricultural  purposes 
for  a  term  not  exceeding  three  years."  7 

The  ingenuity  of  this  remarkable  docu 
ment  becomes  obvious  when  one  compares  it 
with  the  treaty  signed  by  Washington  and 
Tokyo  in  1911,8  and  discovers  that  while  that 
treaty  guarantees  numerous  privileges  to  the 
citizens  or  subjects  of  one  country  living  in 

7  For  the  remaining  sections,  see  Appendix  B. 
s  See  Appendix  C. 


106  THE  JAPANESE  CRISIS 

the  other,  it  nowhere  grants  the  right  to  own 
land, — nor  even  to  lease  it  except  "for  resi 
dential  and  commercial  purposes."  The 
Alien  Land  Law  therefore  not  only  con 
serves,  at  least  nominally,  all  the  rights  guar 
anteed  by  treaty  to  the  Japanese  residing  in 
California,  but,  in  addition,  confers  the 
privilege  of  leasing  land  "for  agricultural 
purposes"  for  terms  of  three  years. 

To  use  a  phrase  of  the  day,  Sacramento 
"put  it  up"  to  Washington;  not  only  in  the 
matter  of  this  treaty,  but  in  respect  of  a  far 
larger  question:  for,  after  all,  it  is  Washing 
ton  that  determines  who  is  eligible  to  citizen 
ship — and,  except  for  the  ineligibility  of  the 
Japanese,  as  predetermined  by  Washington, 
this  bill  would  confer  upon  them  all  the  privi 
leges  now  accorded  to  native  white  citizens. 

It  is  precisely  this  phrase,  however,  "eli 
gible  to  citizenship,"  with  its  forcibly  im 
plied  contrast,  that  constitutes  the  gravest 
offense  of  the  California  Alien  Land  Law. 
This  law  "rubs  in"  the  fact  that,  under  our 
naturalization  system,  which  admits  white 


ALIEN  LAND  LAW  107 

skins  and  black  skins  but  tolerates  no  inter 
mediate  shades  such  as  red  or  yellow  or 
brown,  Japanese  may  not  become  citizens. 

To  state  the  matter  from  another  point  of 
'view,  the  bill  is  obviously  discriminatory. 
If  it  applied  to  all  aliens  alike,  the  Japanese 
government  would  have  submitted  grace 
fully.  As  it  is,  it  wounds  their  national 
pride,  as  it  would  our  own.  California 
should  so  amend  the  bill  as  to  make  it  non- 
discriminatory.  It  is  far  better  to  lose  a  few 
investments  than  to  barter  the  good  will  of  a 
great  power,  t 

Moreover,  there  is  sound  argument  ad- 
ducible  for  the  belief  that  fee  simple  owner 
ship  of  land  should  inhere  only  in  citizens. 
Let  British  or  German  subjects  cultivate 
American  land  by  means  of  leaseholds,  or 
control  it  through  citizen  agents.  If  they 
hunger  for  the  unearned  increment  that  ac 
crues  from  permanent  ownership,  or  for  any 
other  reason  aspire  to  impinge  on  the  emi 
nent  domain,  let  them  take  out  naturalization 
papers — they  are  not  ineligible.  Sound 

fSec  Appendix  D. 


108  THE  JAPANESE  CRISIS 

principles  support  the  doctrine  that  only  the 
actual  citizens  of  a  nation  should  own  its 
land.  Has  any  nation  shown  more  defer 
ence  to  this  doctrine  than  Japan  itself? 
Only  since  1910  has  the  law  granting  "land- 
ownership"  to  foreigners,  of  which  we  have 
heard  so  much,  shown  its  face  on  the  minutes 
of  Parliament;  and  when  we  examine  its 
features  we  discover  a  somewhat  noticeable 
reserve.9  This  ordinance  prevents  itself 
from  going  into  force  until  the  Emperor  de 
termines  to  issue  it,  and  this  he  never  has 
done.  It  requires  that,  in  the  case  of  an  in 
dividual,  he  shall  be  actually  resident  in 
Japan  during  the  period  of  ownership,  and 
that,  in  the  case  of  corporations,  the  Home 
Secretary  must  specifically  approve;  that 
the  home  nation  of  such  landholding  aliens 
must,  as  a  prerequisite  condition  of  their 
landholding,  grant  to  Japanese  the  recipro 
cal  right  to  hold  land;  that  its  provisions 
shall  in  no  case  extend  to  Saghalien,  For 
mosa,  or  the  Hokkaido,  the  only  places 

9  See  Appendix  A. 


ALIEN  LAND  LAW  109 

where  there  is  the  slightest  room  for  foreign 
ers;  further,  that  its  provisions  shall  not  ex 
tend  to  any  district  whatsoever  which  the 
Emperor  may  at  any  time  proclaim  to  be 
requisite  to  the  national  defense ;  and  that  in 
case  of  the  violation  of  any  one  of  the  terms 
of  this  carefully  hedged-about  ordinance,  the 
property  shall  escheat  to  the  State. 

Japan  has  long  had  alien  land  laws.  As 
may  be  seen  by  the  preceding  summary  of 
the  reservations  in  the  statute  passed  by 
Parliament  April  13,  1910,  the  repeal  of 
these  alien  land  laws  is  theoretical  rather 
than  practical,  and,  even  should  it  be  put  into 
effect,  the  rights  granted  to  aliens  would  be 
rigidly  limited,  besides  being  revocable  at 
any  time. 

Whatever  criticisms  may  be  directed 
against  this  Japanese  ordinance,  however,  it 
cannot  be  accused  of  national  or  race  dis 
crimination.  On  the  other  hand,  in  com 
mon  fairness  it  should  be  everywhere  remem 
bered  that  it  was  not  the  race  prejudice  of 
the  California  agricultural  laborer  that  pre- 


110  THE  JAPANESE  CRISIS 

vented  the  passage  of  a  non-discriminatory 
land  law  here,  but  the  corporate  interests ; 10 
at  their  door  lies  the  offense  that  wounds 
Japan.  California  should  remove  this  of 
fense,  and  not  wait  for  the  nation  to  do  it. 
It  is  by  no  means  a  simple  issue  that  Cali 
fornia  raised  for  the  nation  by  suggesting, 
through  laying  emphasis  on  eligibility  to 
citizenship,  the  whole  question  of  naturaliza 
tion.  We  have  very  absurd  laws  now,  it  is 
true.  Since  we  make  color  their  basis,  and 
favor  the  two  extremes  of  white  and  black, 
it  might  seem  at  first  thought  desirable  to 
run  the  whole  chromatic  scale,  and  admit  to 
citizenship  not  only  the  red  man,  who  resided 
here  before  we  did,  but  those  yellow  and 

10  "The  limitations  upon  aliens,  and  especially  upon  cor 
porations,  rather  than  upon  Asiatic  aliens,  called  forth 
protests  from  the  San  Francisco  Real  Estate  Board  and 
Chambers  of  Commerce,  Boards  of  Trade,  and  Merchants' 
Associations  meeting  in  San  Francisco,  February  20,  1913. 
The  opposition  was  so  strong  that  it  eventually  became  evi 
dent  that  a  bill  restricting  the  rights  of  all  aliens,  and 
especially  of  corporations,  the  majority  of  whose  stock  was 
held  by  aliens,  could  not  be  enacted  into  law.  Too  many 
persons  would  be  affected  and  the  desire  for  the  capital  of 
European  investors  was  too  pressing.  Only  a  discrimina 
tory  bill  could  pass." — Millis,  as  cited,  pp.  202-203.  See 
also  Hichborn,  1913,  as  cited,  p.  243;  and  this  volume,  Ap 
pendix  D. 


ALIEN  LAND  LAW  111 

brown  men  of  high  intelligence  and  elevated 
culture  who  seek  admission  now.  But  the 
matter  is  not  so  simple  as  that.  The  black 
man  would  never  have  got  in  when  he  did 
except  for  the  storms  of  confusion  that  suc 
ceeded  a  terrible  civil  war ;  and  the  fact  that 
he  did  get  in,  and  en  masse  at  that,  has  un 
doubtedly  delayed  the  consideration  that 
might  otherwise  have  been  given  to  the  ad 
mission,  on  a  personal  basis,  of  cultivated 
orientals,  for  example.  The  wholesale  ad 
mittance  of  the  Negro,  in  the  circumstances 
that  attended  it  and  that  still  surround  his 
presence,  has  sharpened  to  acuteness  the 
most  serious  race  problem  to  be  found  any 
where  on  the  globe:  that  of  the  American 
Negro.  f^'This  problem,"  as  Grady  said  at 
Dallas,  when  speaking  of  its  strong  concen 
tration  in  his  beloved  "Southland,"  "is  to 
carry  within  her  body  politic  two  separate 
races,  and  nearly  equal  in  numbers.  She 
must  carry  these  races  in  peace — for  discord 
means  ruin.  She  must  carry  them  sepa 
rately — for  assimilation  means  debasement. 


112  THE  JAPANESE  CRISIS 

She  must  carry  them  in  equal  justice — for  to 
this  she  is  pledged  in  honor  and  in  gratitude. 
She  must  carry  them  even  unto  the  end,  for 
in  human  probability  she  will  never  be  quit 
of  either."  A 

A  sense  of  the  seriousness  of  this  Negro 
problem  has  now  wholly  permeated  the  na 
tion.  It  is  a  well  recognized  national  prob 
lem  of  enormous  gravity;  and,  with  such  an 
extreme  instance  of  the  possible  evils  of  ra 
cial  juxtaposition  and  equal  enfranchise-^ 
ment  clearly  and  constantly  before  it,  the 
nation  is  in  no  mood  at  the  present  to  con 
sider  Professor  Woodberry's  apocalypse  of 
dissolution.12 

To  speak  prose,  the  potentially  normal 
extension  of  a  rational  code  of  natural 
ization  laws  has  been  gravely  hindered  and 
greatly  postponed  by  the  fact  that  we  have 
an  abnormal  and  irrational  code.  Oppo 
nents  of  such  enlargement  would  argue  that 
because  one  mistake  has  been  made  is  no 

nGrady,   H.  W.,  "Writings  and  Speeches":  New  York, 
1890;  p.  96. 
12  See  page  68. 


ALIEN  LAND  LAW  113 

reason  for  making  another;  and,  while  their 
conclusion  might  be  subject  to  attack,  their 
premise  stands  like  a  stone  wall. 

The  national  government  cannot  well  af 
ford  to  accept  California's  challenge,  if  chal 
lenge  it  is,  on  the  issue  of  naturalization. 
But  in  a  larger  way  it  should  accept  chal 
lenge.  Not  since  the  New  Orleans-Italian 
embroglio,  under  President  Harrison,  when 
Louisiana  brought  the  United  States  to  the 
very  verge  of  war  with  Italy  over  a  lynch 
ing,13  have  we  had  so  sharply  forced  home 

is  The  circumstances  were,  briefly,  as  follows:  A  band 
of  oath-bound  secret  murderers,  known  as  the  "Maffia,"  dis 
turbed  the  peace  and  safety  of  New  Orleans  until  run 
down  by  the  brave  police  chief,  Hennessey,  who  was 
promptly  murdered.  Eleven  Italians,  or  Sicilians,  were 
tried  for  this  murder,  and,  although  obviously  guilty,  ac 
quitted  by  a  timorous  jury.  Thousands  of  angry  citizens 
thereupon  stormed  the  jail  and  lynched  the  eleven  prison 
ers,  three  of  whom  turned  out  to  be  Italian  subjects — the 
others  being  naturalized  Americans.  A  long  diplomatic 
correspondence  ensued  between  Rome  and  Washington, 
leading  to  an  ultimatum  from  the  King  in  which  he  de 
manded  punishment  of  the  lynchers  and  a  large  indemnity. 
Secretary  Elaine  took  the  ground  that  the  State  of  Louisi 
ana,  and  not  the  United  States,  had  jurisdiction.  Diplo 
matic  relations  were  sundered.  The  matter  was  finally  ad 
justed  through  an  apology  from  Secretary  Blaine  and  the 
payment  of  $25,000. 

Regardless   of   the   merits   of   this   incident,   is   not   that 


THE  JAPANESE  CRISIS 

on  us  the  humiliating  futility  of  the  national 
government  in  dealing  with  important  inter 
national  affairs,  if  a  state  should  happen  to 
choose  to  be  obstreperous.  Let  us  sum  up 
the  present  episode.  A  San  Francisco 
school  board  in  1906  sets  two  hemispheres 
by  the  ears  and  gets  a  threat  of  troops  from 
President  Roosevelt.  Japan  in  1907  repays 
his  sympathetic  concern  by  a  "Gentlemen's 
Agreement"  which  covers  pretty  effectually 
a  much  larger  issue  than  that  of  the  school 
board,  through  stopping  the  immigration  of 
all  male  laborers.  California  in  1913  passes 
a  law  which  discriminates  against  one  of 
the  parties  to  this  international  agreement. 
Washington  protests,  and  Mr.  Bryan,  with 
foolish  good  intentions,  interferes.  Cali 
fornia  then  outwits  the  national  government. 
Japan  claims  that  a  treaty  has  been  violated, 
if  not  in  letter,  assuredly  in  spirit — 
and  Washington  once  more  drags  out  the 

system  pregnant  with  danger  which  permits  a  foreign 
power  to  make  treaties  with  one  sovereignty,  that  at  Wash 
ington,  only  to  find  out,  in  crises,  that  it  has  been  dealing 
with  fifty  other  sovereignties,  the  states  themselves? 


ALIEN  LAND  LAW  115 

stock  explanation  of  the  peculiar  character 
of  our  institutions,  which  in  this  case  is 
only  a  euphemism  for  futility.  "Accord 
ing  to  the  American  custom,"  as  Baron 
Shibusawa  says,14  "the  central  authorities 
are  unable  to  stop  or  to  restrain  a  state  of 
the  Union  from  doing  as  it  pleases.  ,  .  . 
Our  Japanese  attitude  toward  America  has 
always  been  systematic,  and  there  will  not 
be  any  change  in  our  friendship  toward 
America.  But  the  masses  of  the  people  may 
become  enraged  if  the  strained  relations  con 
tinue  long."  15 

,  The  most  important  piece  of  legislation 
still  waiting  to  be  done  in  this  country  is  the 
enactment  of.  .ajaw oriels  ^^-constitutional 
amendment  if  necessary,  that  will  put  inter 
national  affairs  in  the  hands  ofjbhe  nation. 
Meanwhile,  let  us  trust  Japan's  honor  to 
maintain  the  "Gentlemen's  Agreement,"  and 
burnish  our  own  by  wiping  away  discrimina 
tion.10 

i*  In  "Japan's  Message  to  America,"  as  cited,  pp.  35,  36. 

is  See  page  59. 

16  "Declaration,"  p.  134,  and  Appendix  D. 


APPENDIX  A 

LAND  OWNERSHIP  IN  JAPAN 


LAW  RELATING  TO  FOREIGNERS'  RIGHT  OF 
OWNERSHIP  IN  LAND 

(Promulgated  April  13,  1910) 

ARTICLE  I 

FOREIGNERS  domiciled  or  resident  in  Japan  and 
foreign  juridical  persons  registered  therein  shall 
enjoy  the  right  of  ownership  in  land,  provided  al 
ways  that  in  the  countries  to  which  they  belong 
such  right  is  extended  to  Japanese  subjects  and 
Japanese  juridical  persons ;  and  provided  further, 
in  case  of  foreign  juridical  persons,  that  they  shall 
obtain  permission  of  the  Minister  of  Home  Affairs 
in  acquiring  such  ownership. 

The  foregoing  provisions  shall  be  applicable 
only  to  foreigners  and  foreign  juridical  persons 
belonging  to  the  countries  to  be  designated  by  Im 
perial  ordinance. 

ARTICLE  II 

Foreigners  and  foreign  juridical  persons  shall 
not  be  capable  of  enjoying  the  right  of  ownership 
in  land  in  the  following  districts : 

1.  Hokkaido, 

2.  Formosa, 

119 


120  THE  JAPANESE  CRISIS 

3.  Karafuto, 

4.  Districts  necessary  for  national  defense. 

The  districts  coming  under  No.  4  of  the  preced 
ing  paragraph  shall  be  designated  by  Imperial  or 
dinance. 

ARTICLE  III 

In  case  a  foreigner  or  a  foreign  juridical  person 
owning  land  ceases  to  be  capable  of  enjoying  the 
right  of  ownership  in  land,  the  ownership  of  such 
land  shall  accrue  to  the  fiscus,  unless  he  disposes 
of  it  within  a  period  of  one  year. 

In*  case  a  foreigner,  by  reason  of  losing  his 
domicile  or  residence  in  Japan,  or  a  foreign  jurid 
ical  person,  on  account  of  withdrawing  his  business 
establishment  or  office  from  Japan,  ceases  to  be 
capable  of  enjoying  the  right  of  ownership  in  land, 
the  period  mentioned  in  the  preceding  paragraph 
shall  be  five  years. 

If  any  land  owned  by  a  foreigner  or  foreign  ju 
ridical  person  is  situated  within  the  district  desig 
nated  under  the  last  paragraph  of  the  preceding 
article  as  necessary  for  national  defense,  and  if,  in 
consequence,  the  ownership  of  such  land  accrues 
to  the  fiscus,  the  damages  thereby  caused  to  the 
former  owner  shall  be  compensated. 

In  case  of  failure  to  arrive  at  an  accord  with  re 
gard  to  the  amount  of  compensation  mentioned  in 


APPENDIX  A  121 

the  preceding  paragraph,  a  suit  may  be  brought 
before  an  ordinary  court  of  justice.   .   .   .* 

i  XOTE  :  This  translation  was  courteously  furnished  by 
Mr.  K.  K.  Kawakami,  of  San  Francisco.  There  are  five 
other  articles  in  the  law,  Article  IV  providing  that  the 
date  of  putting  the  law  into  force  shall  be  determined  by 
Imperial  ordinance — an  ordinance  which  has  not  yet  been 
promulgated.  The  other  articles  are  said  not  to  be  perti 
nent  to  the  main  issue.  J.  A.  B.  S. 


APPENDIX  B 

CALIFORNIA'S  ALIEN  LAND  LAW 


ALIEN  LAND  LAW  OF  CALIFORNIA 
(Approved  May   19,  1913) 

THE  people  of  the  State  of  California  do  enact 
as  follows: 

Section  1.  All  aliens  eligible  to  citizenship  un 
der  the  laws  of  the  United  States  may  acquire, 
possess,  enjoy,  transmit,  and  inherit  real  property, 
or  any  interest  therein,  in  this  State,  in  the  same 
manner  and  to  the  same  extent  as  citizens  of  the 
United  States,  except  as  otherwise  provided  by  the 
laws  of  this  State. 

Sec.  2.  All  aliens  other  than  those  mentioned 
in  section  one  of  this  act  may  acquire,  possess,  en 
joy  and  transfer  real  property,  or  any  interest 
therein,  in  this  State,  in  the  manner  and  to  the 
extent  and  for  the  purposes  prescribed  by  any 
treaty  now  existing  between  the  government  of  the 
United  States  and  the  nation  or  country  of  which 
such  alien  is  a  citizen  or  subject  and  not  otherwise, 
and  may  in  addition  thereto  lease  lands  in  this 
State  for  agricultural  purposes  for  a  term  not  ex 
ceeding  three  years. 

Sec.  3.  Any  company,  association  or  corpora 
tion  organized  under  the  lawrs  of  this  or  any  other 

State  or  nation,  of  which  a  majority  of  the  mem- 
125 


126  THE  JAPANESE  CRISIS 

bers  are  aliens  other  than  those  specified  in  section 
one  of  this  act,  or  in  which  a  majority  of  the  issued 
capital  stock  is  owned  by  such  aliens,  may  acquire, 
possess,  enjoy  and  convey  real  property,  or  any 
interest  therein,  in  this  State,  in  the  manner  and 
to  the  extent  and  for  the  purposes  prescribed  by 
any  treaty  now  existing  between  the  government  of 
the  United  States  and  the  nation  or  country  of 
which  such  members  or  stockholders  are  citizens  or 
subjects,  and  not  otherwise,  and  may  in  addition 
thereto  lease  lands  in  this  State  for  agricultural 
purposes  for  a  term  not  exceeding  three  years. 

Sec.  4*.  Whenever  it  appears  to  the  court  in 
any  probate  proceeding  that  by  reason  of  the  pro 
visions  of  this  act  any  heir  or  devisee  can  not  take 
real  property  in  this  State  which,  but  for  said  pro 
visions,  said  heir  or  devisee  would  take  as  such, 
the  court,  instead  of  ordering  a  distribution  of 
such  real  property  to  such  heir  or  devisee,  shall 
order  a  sale  of  said  real  property  to  be  made  in  the 
manner  provided  by  law  for  probate  sales  of  real 
property,  and  the  proceeds  of  such  sale  shall  be 
distributed  to  such  heir  or  devisee  in  lieu  of  such 
real  property. 

Sec.  5.  Any  real  property  hereafter  acquired 
in  fee  in  violation  of  the  provisions  of  this  act  by 
any  alien  mentioned  in  section  two  of  this  act,  or 


APPENDIX  B 


by  any  company,  association  or  corporation  men 
tioned  in  section  three  of  this  act,  shall  escheat  to, 
and  become  and  remain  the  property  of  the  State 
of  California.  The  attorney  general  shall  insti 
tute  proceedings  to  have  the  escheat  of  such  real 
property  adjudged  and  enforced  in  the  manner 
provided  by  section  474  of  the  Political  Code  and 
title  eight,  part  three  of  the  Code  of  Civil  Pro 
cedure.  Upon  the  entry  of  final  judgment  in  such 
proceedings,  the  title  to  such  real  property  shall 
pass  to  the  State  of  California.  The  provisions 
of  this  section  and  of  sections  two  and  three  of  this 
act  shall  not  apply  to  any  real  property  hereafter 
acquired  in  the  enforcement  or  in  satisfaction  of 
any  lien  now  existing  upon,  or  interest  in  such 
property,  so  long  as  such  real  property  so  ac 
quired  shall  remain  the  property  of  the  alien,  com 
pany,  association  or  corporation  acquiring  the 
same  in  such  manner. 

Sec.  6.  Any  leasehold  or  other  interest  in  real 
property  less  than  the  fee,  hereafter  acquired  in 
violation  of  the  provisions  of  this  act  by  any  alien 
mentioned  in  section  two  of  this  act,  or  by  anTy 
company,  association  or  corporation  mentigrfed  in 
section  three  of  this  act,  shall  escheat  to  the  State 
of  California.  The  attorney  general  shall  insti 
tute  proceedings  to  have  such  escheat  adjudged 


128  THE  JAPANESE  CRISIS 

and  enforced  as  provided  in  section  five  of  this  act. 
In  such  proceedings  the  court  shall  determine  and 
adjudge  the  value  of  such  leasehold,  or  other  in 
terest  in  such  real  property,  and  enter  judgment 
for  the  State  for  the  amount  thereof  together  with 
costs.  Thereupon  the  court  shall  order  a  sale 
of  the  real  property  covered  by  such  leasehold,  or 
other  interest,  in  the  manner  provided  by  section 
1271  of  the  Code  of  Civil  Procedure.  Out  of  the 
proceeds  arising  from  such  sale,  the  amount  of  the 
judgment  rendered  for  the  State  shall  be  paid  into 
the  State  treasury  and  the  balance  shall  be  depos 
ited  with  and  distributed  by  the  court  in  accord 
ance  with  the  interest  of  the  parties  therein. 

Sec.  7.  Nothing  in  this  act  shall  be  construed 
as  a  limitation  upon  the  power  of  the  State  to 
enact  laws  with  respect  to  the  acquisition,  holding 
or  disposal  by  aliens  of  real  property  in  this  State. 

Sec.  8.  All  acts  and  parts  of  acts  inconsistent 
or  in  conflict  with  the  provisions  of  this  act,  are 
hereby  repealed. 


APPENDIX  C 

THE   AMERICAN-JAPANESE    TREATY 
OF  1911 


EXTRACTS  FROM  THE  TREATY  OP  COMMERCE  AND 
NAVIGATION  AND  PROTOCOL  BETWEEN  JAPAN 
AND  THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  AMERICA 

(February  21,  1911) 

His  Majesty,  the  Emperor  of  Japan,  and  the 
President  of  the  United  States  of  America,  being 
desirous  to  strengthen  the  relations  of  amity  and 
good  understanding  which  happily  exist  between 
the  two  nations,  and  believing  that  the  fixation  in 
a  manner  clear  and  positive  of  the  rules  which  are 
hereafter  to  govern  the  commercial  intercourse  be 
tween  their  respective  countries  will  contribute  to 
this  most  desirable  result,  have  resolved  to  con 
clude  a  treaty  of  commerce  and  navigation. 

ARTICLE  I 

The  subjects  or  citizens  of  each  of  the  high  con 
tracting  parties  shall  have  liberty  to  enter,  travel, 
and  reside  in  the  territories  of  the  other,  to  carry 
on  trade,  wholesale  and  retail,  to  own  or  lease  and 
occupy  houses,  manufactories,  warehouses,  and 
shops,  to  employ  agents  of  their  choice,  to  lease 
land  for  residential  and  commercial  purposes,  and 
generally  to  do  anything  incident  to  or  necessary 

for  trade,  upon  the  same  terms  as  native  subjects 
131 


132  THE  JAPANESE  CRISIS 

or  citizens,  submitting  themselves  to  the  laws  and 
regulations  there  established. 

They  shall  not  be  compelled,  under  any  pretext 
whatever,  to  pay  any  charges  or  taxes  other  or 
higher  than  those  that  are  or  may  be  paid  by  na 
tive  subjects  or  citizens. 

The  subjects  or  citizens  of  each  of  the  high  con 
tracting  parties  shall  receive,  in  the  territories  of 
the  other,  the  most  constant  protection  and  secur 
ity  for  their  persons  and  property  and  shall  enjoy 
in  this  respect  the  same  rights  and  privileges  as 
are  or  may  be  granted  to  native  subjects  or  citi 
zens,  on  their  submitting  themselves  to  the  condi 
tions  imposed  upon  the  native  subjects  and  citi 
zens. 

ARTICLE  IV 

There  shall  be  between  the  territories  of  the  two 
high  contracting  parties  reciprocal  freedom  of 
commerce  and  navigation.  The  subjects  or  citi 
zens  of  each  of  the  contracting  parties,  equally 
with  the  subjects  or  citizens  of  the  most  favored 
nation  shall  have  liberty  freely  to  come  with  their 
ships  and  cargoes  to  all  places,  ports,  and  rivers 
in  the  territories  of  the  other  which  are  or  may  be 
opened  to  foreign  commerce,  subject  always  to  the 
laws  of  the  country  to  which  they  thus  come. 


APPENDIX  C  133 

ARTICLE  V 

.  .  .  Neither  contracting  party  shall  impose 
any  other  or  higher  duties  or  charges  on  the  ex 
portation  of  any  article  to  the  territories  of  the 
other  than  are  or  may  be  payable  on  the  exporta 
tion  of  the  like  article  to  any  other  foreign  coun- 
try. 

Nor  shall  any  prohibition  be  imposed  by  either 
country  on  the  importation  or  exportation  of  any 
article  from  or  to  the  territories  of  the  other  which 
shall  not  equally  extend  to  the  like  article  imported 
from  or  exported  to  any  other  country.  .  .  . 

ARTICLE  VIII 

There  shall  be  perfect  equality  of  treatment  in 
regard  to  exportation.  .  .  . 

ARTICLE  IX 

.  .  .  the  intention  of  the  contracting  parties  be 
ing  that  in  these  respects  the  respective  vessels 
shall  be  treated  on  the  footing  of  perfect  equality. 

ARTICLE  XI 

No  duties  of  tonnage,  harbor,  pilotage,  quaran 
tine,  or  other  similar  duties  .  .  .  shall  be  imposed 
.  .  .  which  shall  not  equally  under  the  same  con 
ditions  be  imposed  on  national  vessels  in  general  or 
on  vessels  of  the  most  favored  nation, 


134  THE  JAPANESE  CRISIS 

ARTICLE  XIII 

The  coasting  trade  of  the  high  contracting  par 
ties  is  excepted  from  the  provisions  of  the  present 
treaty  and  shall  be  regulated  according  to  the  laws 
of  Japan  and  the  United  States  respectively.  It 
is,  however,  understood  that  the  subjects  or  citi 
zens  of  either  contracting  party  shall  enjoy  in  this 
respect  most-favored-nation  treatment  in  the  ter 
ritories  of  the  other. 

ARTICLE  XIV 

Except  as  otherwise  expressly  provided  in  this 
treaty,  the  high  contracting  parties  agree  that  in 
all  that  concerns  commerce  and  navigation,  any 
privilege,  favor,  or  immunity  which  either  con 
tracting  party  has  actually  granted  or  may  here 
after  grant,  to  the  subjects  or  citizens  of  any 
other  state  shall  be  extended  to  the  subjects  or  citi 
zens  of  the  other  contracting  party  ...  on  the 
same  or  equivalent  conditions.  .  .  . 

Declaration 

In  proceeding  this  day  to  the  signature  of  the 
treaty  of  commerce  and  navigation,  .  .  .  the  un 
dersigned  has  the  honor  to  declare  that  the  Im 
perial  Japanese  Government  are  fully  prepared  to 
maintain  with  equal  effectiveness  the  limitation 


APPENDIX  C  135 

and  control  which  they  have  for  the  past  three 
years  exercised  in  regulation  of  the  laborers  to  the 
United  States. 

(Signed)       Y.  UCHIDA. 


APPENDIX  D 

AN  ARGUMENT  FOR  NON- 
DISCRIMINATION 


ARGUMENT  IN  FAVOR  OF  A  NON-DISCRIMINATORY 
ALIEN  LAND  LAW,  BY  J.  O.  DAVIS,  CHAIRMAN 
OF  THE  DEMOCRATIC  CENTRAL  COMMITTEE  OF 
CALIFORNIA. 

"THE  alien-ownership-of-land  question  in  Cali 
fornia  could  be  settled  permanently  and  satisfac 
torily  by  the  enactment  of  legislation  prohibiting 
the  ownership  of  land  by  all  aliens  of  whatever 
race  and  nationality. 

"The  enactment  of  legislation  prohibiting  the 
ownership  of  land  by  the  citizens  of  a.ny'particur- 
lar  country  means  inevitable  conflict  between  the 
State  and  the  treaty-making  power  of  our  Govern 
ment.  The  safe^and  sound  course  would  be  to 
avoid  the  possibility  of  any  such  conflict  by  enact 
ing  legislation  that  puts  all  aliens  on  an  exa"ct 
equality. 

"During  the  recent  agitation  of  the  alien- 
ownership-of-land  question,  legislation  directed 
against  all  aliens  without  distinction  was  opposed 
on  the  ground  that  our  State  needs  foreign  capital 
for  its  development.  This  objection,  however, 
will  not  bear  investigation,  as  foreign  capital  ex 
ploits  rather  than  develops.  All  the  profit  of  such 
139 


140  THE  JAPANESE  CRISIS 

development  is  taken  out  of  the  country  and  does 
our  own  people  and  our  own  State  no  good  what 
ever. 

"The  only  possible  advantage  coming  to  us  from 
the  development  of  natural  resources  by  a  foreign 
corporation  is  giving  us  the  opportunity  to  sell  to 
such  corporation  labor  and  material.  Those  of 
our  citizens  who  have  advantageous  connections 
with  such  corporations  are  also  profited,  but  we 
can  hardly  consider  any  less  than  the  whole  people 
when  considering  legislation. 

"Our  conservation  program  contemplates  the 
regulation  of  all  natural  resources  for  the  benefit 
of  the  whole  people.  We  are  disregarding  this 
principle  if  we  permit  our  legislative  conduct  to 
be  influenced  in  the  interest  of  any  less  number  of 
citizens  than  all  our  citizens.  We  cannot,  there 
fore,  consider  the  relatively  small  number  of  peo 
ple  who  are  benefited  by  the  presence  of  foreign 
corporations  engaged  in  developing  our  resources. 
Every  citizen  has  an  interest  in  the  profits  accru 
ing  from  such  development,  and  if  the  profits  are 
being  taken  from  the  country,  our  citizens  are  be 
ing  deprived  of  their  interest  in  resources  that 
belong  to  all  our  people. 

"The  highest  privilege  that  can  be  conferred  on 
a  citizen  by  the  Government  is  the  right  to  hold 


APPENDIX  D  14fl 

title  to  a  part  of  his  country,  and  that  man  who  is 
not  sufficiently  interested  in  our  country  and  our 
institutions  to  declare  his  intention  to  become  a 
citizen  is  not  entitled  to  have  conferred  upon  him 
the  right  and  honor  to  own  American  soil." 

i  From   Hichborn,   1913,  as   cited,  p.   239,  note.    Italics, 
the  present  writer's. 


INDEX 


INDEX 


Agricultural       Competition, 

89  ff. 

Alien  Land  Law  in  Califor 
nia,  37,  60,  71,  93  ff.,  125  ff. 
Alien  Land  Law,  argument 

for    a    non-discriminatory, 

139. 
Alien  Land  Laws  in  Japan, 

46,  70,  108  ff.,  119  ff. 
American       Expedition       to 

Japan,  9  ff. 
American    friendliness    with 

Japan,  22. 
American  teachers  in  Japan, 

21. 
Asiatic     Exclusion     League, 

28  ff.,  90,  101  ff. 
Asiatic  Institute,  4. 
Assimilability    of    Japanese, 

67  ff.,  84-86. 

Bartlett,  M.,  cited,  51. 
Elaine,  J.  G.,  113. 
Boas,  F.  (note),  77. 
Brinkley,  F.,  cited,  47. 
Bryan,  W.  J.,  101,  103,  104, 

114. 
Bushido,  41. 

California   and   the   opening 
of  Japan,  9  ff. 


California,    Chinese    in,    24, 

26,  90. 

California,    Immigration    to, 

21  ff.,  72,  89  ff. 
California,       Japanese       in, 

33  ff.,  89. 
California,     state     Reports, 

34,  98. 

Caminetti,  A.,  cited,  98. 
"Chinatowns,"  24. 
Chinese  in  California,  24,  26, 

90. 
Chronicle,      San     Francisco, 

27,  28,  101. 

Colonization,  Japanese,  49  ff. 

Commercial  honesty  of  Jap 
anese,  81  ff. 

Commission     to     California, 

60. 

Commons,  J.  R.,  cited,  79. 
Creelman,  J.,  cited,   64. 

Dai  On  Jin,  22,  43. 
Davis,  J.  O.,  cited,  139. 
Democrats   and    Alien    Law, 

97,  98,  102  ff.,  139. 
Deshima,  70. 
Dutch  in  Japan,  70. 

Ebara  and  Harris,  60  ff. 
"Eligibility    to    Citizenship," 
106,  125. 


145 


146 


INDEX 


Eliot,  C.  W.,  cited,  84. 
Elk  Grove,  68. 
Emperor  "Meiji,"  46. 
English,  Study  of,  in  Japan, 

43. 

Ethnology  of  Japanese,   85. 
European      investments      in 

California,     98  ff.,     107  ff., 

139  ff. 
Exclusion  League,  28  ff.,  90, 

101  ff. 

Exclusion  of  Chinese,  26. 
Exclusion  of  foreigners  from 

Japan,  46,  70. 
Exclusion   of  Japanese  first 

proposed,  26. 
Exposition,    San    Francisco, 

100  ff. 

Farming  in  California,  34. 
Fillmore,   President,  quoted, 

16  ff. 
Fishberg,   M.,   cited    (note), 

77. 
"Five  per  cent  plan"  (note), 

91. 

Florin,  103. 
Formosa,  108,  119. 
Forty-seven  Ronin,  58  ff. 
Fresno     Republican-,     cited, 

101. 
Frogs,  Fable  of,  5. 

"Gentlemen's  Agreement," 
28,  29,  97,  114,  115,  134- 
135. 

Germans,  cited,  80. 

"Gilded  Age,"  80. 


Grady,  H.  W.,  cited,  111. 
Great  Embassy,  21. 
Gubbins,  J.  H.,  cited,  70. 
Gulick,  S.  L.,  cited,  32,  34, 

42,  60,  63,  78,  83,  85,  91. 

Hara-Kiri,  41,  42. 

Harris,    Townsend,    22,    60, 

63. 

Harrison,  President,  113. 
Hawks,    J.    L.,   quoted,   9  ff. 
Hearn,  L.,  cited   (note),  77. 
Hearst   newspapers,   41,   62, 

64   (note). 
Heney,  F.  G.,  103. 
Hichborn,  F.,  cited   (notes), 

97,  110,  139. 
Hideyoshi,   47. 
Hokkaido,  108,  119. 
Holland  and  Japan,  70. 
Honesty  of  Japanese,  81  ff. 
Hugo,  Victor,  quoted,  42. 

Immigration  of  orientals  to 
California,  21  ff.,  72,  89  ff. 

Independent,  New  York, 
cited,  100. 

Investments  in  California, 
98  ff.,  107  ff.,  139  ff. 

Italian  embroglio,  113. 

ltd,  H.,  46^7. 

lyemitsu,  71. 

lyeyasu,  17,  44-^-6,  71. 

Japan  Society,  4. 

Johnson,     Governor,     cited, 

102  ff. 
Jordan,  D.  S.,  cited,  53. 


INDEX 


147 


Kaneko,  Baron,  cited,  23,  75. 

Karafuto,  120. 

Kawakami,  K.  K.,  cited,  91, 

121   (note). 

Korea,  Japanese  and,  49,  50. 
Kyoto  and  lyeyasu,  45. 
Kyoto  frog,  5. 

Land  Law  in  California,  37, 

60,  71,  93  ff.,  125  if. 
Land  Laws  in  Japan,  4o,  70, 

108  ff.,    119  ff. 
Lea,  Homer,  47. 
Leases    in    California,     106, 

126  ff. 

Li  Hung  Chang,  58. 
Localization  of  Japanese  in 

California,  33. 
Los    Angeles,    Japanese    in, 

33. 
Los      Angeles      newspapers, 

cited,  101. 

Louisiana  lynching,  113. 
Lowell     Institute     Lectures, 

67. 

Macarthur,  W.,  cited,  72. 
Manchuria,     Japanese     and, 

49,  50. 

Mark  Twain,  cited,  80. 
Marriage  customs  in  Japan, 

31. 
Masefield,   J.,   cited    (note), 

16. 
Maxwell,   G.    H.,   cited,   47, 

49. 

Medieval  Japan,  81. 
Merchants,  Japanese,  81. 


"Merrimac  heroes,"  41. 
Militarism  in  Japan,  41  ff. 
Millis,   H.   A.,  cited,  26,  29, 

83,  90,  91,  110. 
Mitford,       A.       B.,       cited 

(notes),  42,  58. 
Mori,  Viscount,  58. 
Murray,  D.,  cited,  42,  71. 
Mutsuhito,  47. 

Naturalization  Laws,  106, 
110  ff. 

Naudeau,  L.,  cited,  52  ff. 

Negro  problem,  67  ff.,  Ill  ff. 

Newlands,  F.  G.,  cited,  73. 

Newman,  R.,  cited,  68. 

New  Orleans  lynching,  113. 

Nichi-Bei-Doshi-Kwai,  4. 

Nikk5,  44. 

Nitobe,  I.,  cited,  11. 

Nobunaga,  47. 

Nogi,  47. 

Non-discriminatory  legisla 
tion,  98  ff.,  107  ff.,  139  ff. 

Occupations  of  Japanese  in 

California,  34  ff. 
O'Connor,  T.  P.,  cited,  54  ff. 
Okuma,  Count,  cited,  55. 
Okuma,  attack  on,  58. 
Osaka  frog,  5. 

Pasadena  News,  cited,  101. 
Perry  Narrative,  quoted,  9  ff. 
Persecutions,  Japanese,  70. 
Philippines,  Japanese  in,  50- 

51. 
"Picture  Brides,"  30  ff. 


148 


INDEX 


Plasticity  of  nations,  79. 
Proverbs,  Japanese,  41. 
Punch,  quoted,  23. 

Racial     antipathy,     23,     34, 

67  if.,  86,  111. 
Ronin,  58  ff. 

Roosevelt,  President,  29,  114. 
Root,  E.,  cited,  56. 
Rowell,    C.     H.,    cited,    24, 

30  ff.,  68,  72,  90,  101. 
Russia,  Japanese  war  with, 

51  ff. 

Saga,  5,  43. 

Saghalien,   108. 

Samurai,  41,  81. 

San      Francisco       Chronicle 

cited,  27,  28,  101. 
San     Francisco     Exposition, 

100  ff. 
San  Francisco,  Japanese  in, 

33. 
San  Francisco  mass  meeting, 

26. 
San    Francisco    Post,    cited, 

101. 
San      Francisco      "Separate 

School  Order,"  28,  114. 
Scherer,    J.     A.     B.,    cited, 

80,  82,  100. 

Schoolboys,  Japanese,  43. 
"Separate     School     Order," 

28,  114. 
Seward,  quoted,  17. 


Shibusawa,  Baron,  cited,  60, 
115. 

Social  classes  in  Japan,  81. 

Soshi,  58  ff.,  115. 

South,  Race  problem  in, 
67  ff.,  Ill  ff. 

Southern  California,  Japa 
nese  in,  33. 

Soyeda,  J.,  cited,  61. 

Spanish  Inquisition,  70. 

Spencer,  H.,  cited,  75,  85. 

Statistics,  33  ff. 

Story,  R.  M.,  cited,  50. 

Takekoshi,  Y.,  cited,  49. 
Togo,  47. 

Tokugawa  Shogunate,  44. 
Tokyo,  Founding  of,  45. 
Toky5,  Riots  of  'sixties,  60. 
Tokyo,  Riots  of  1904,  54. 
Treaty  of  1854,  21. 
Treaty    of    1911,    105,    114, 
131  ff. 

Warner,  C.  D.,  cited,  80. 
Washington,  Japanese  in,  33. 
Webb,         Attorney-General, 

104. 

"Why  I  study  English,"  43. 
Woodberry,     G.     E.,     cited, 

67  ff.,  112. 

Yamato-damashn,  69. 
Yedo,  9ff.,  45. 
Yoshida,  Y.,  cited,  27. 
Young,  J.  P.,  cited,  28. 


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